Authorities seize and sell apartment of journalist convicted in absentia for “extremism”

This includes some of the prop­er­ty seized from Hrod­na jour­nal­ist Uladz­imir Khilmanovich. Accord­ing to a court deci­sion, the prop­er­ty will be sold at auc­tion to com­pen­sate for the sub­stan­tial fine imposed on Khilmanovich.

Uladz­imir Khilmanovich. Cour­tesy pho­to

The Depart­ment of Forced Exe­cu­tion of Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict in Hrod­na sent Uladz­imir Khilmanovich an offi­cial doc­u­ment stat­ing that his apart­ment was appraised at $42,000.

The doc­u­ment states that the appraisal of the jour­nal­ist’s pri­vate apart­ment was con­duct­ed on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2026, by the local branch of the state enter­prise BelYurZ­abe­spi­achenne. This state enter­prise, which is part of the Belaru­sian Min­istry of Jus­tice sys­tem, is involved in sell­ing con­fis­cat­ed and seized prop­er­ty through auc­tions.

The auc­tion date has not yet been set, and Uladz­imir can only guess how every­thing will pro­ceed. He notes that his fine amounts to$13,400, while the apart­ment is worth three times more.

“I’ve heard that the remain­ing mon­ey after com­pen­sat­ing for the imposed fine should be trans­ferred to my bank account. I don’t have accounts in Belarus — unless they open one specif­i­cal­ly for me. And also: if I don’t with­draw this mon­ey, it will be seized by the state after some time,” the jour­nal­ist says.

The jour­nal­ist and his eldest son are reg­is­tered in the two-room, 50-square-meter apart­ment on Tserashko­va Street in Hrod­na. There­fore, the apart­ment will be sold with its reg­is­tered res­i­dents.

Ear­li­er this month, it became known that author­i­ties tried to sell the jour­nal­ist’s sum­mer house at auc­tion — more pre­cise­ly, a build­ing in the vil­lage of Nava­si­ol­ki in Masty Dis­trict, which appears in doc­u­ments as a “rur­al club.” Uladz­imir Khilmanovich dreamed of mak­ing it a place for fam­i­ly recre­ation, but this required very large finan­cial invest­ments. The wood­en struc­ture, which is in dire need of sig­nif­i­cant repairs, was appraised at $1,680. But at the auc­tion sched­uled for March 19, 2026, no one pur­chased it.

The jour­nal­ist says he long ago “gave up” on the prop­er­ty he had to leave in Belarus. Since 2021, he has been forced to live in exile, hav­ing left his home­land due to the threat of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for his pro­fes­sion­al and civic activ­i­ties.

The Case of Uladzimir Khilmanovich

On August 19, 2024, Hrod­na Region­al Court judge Ihar Sobaleu found Uladz­imir Khilmanovich guilty of facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties and being part of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. The crim­i­nal case against the jour­nal­ist was tried in absen­tia — under the so-called spe­cial pro­ceed­ings pro­ce­dure.

As a result, judge Ihar Sobaleu sen­tenced Uladz­imir Khilmanovich to 5 years impris­on­ment and imposed a fine of $13,400.

The jour­nal­ist’s attempts to appeal the region­al court ver­dict were unsuc­cess­ful.

Uladz­imir Khilmanovich learned that a crim­i­nal case had been opened against him at the end of Novem­ber 2023. That’s when secu­ri­ty forces inven­to­ried his prop­er­ty at his reg­is­tered address in Hrod­na. A week lat­er, a search was con­duct­ed in the apart­ment of Uladz­imir’s wife, where he lived from 2014 to 2021. They seized a com­put­er proces­sor, an old press card, 25 books, a music disc, postage stamps, envelopes, post­cards, brochures, badges, and news­pa­pers. House­hold appli­ances were also inven­to­ried.

The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee announced the start of spe­cial pro­ceed­ings against the Hrod­na jour­nal­ist on March 13, 2024.

On Sep­tem­ber 13, 2024, Uladz­imir Khilmanovich’s name was added to the list of per­sons “involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties” on the Belaru­sian Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs web­site.

What exact­ly Khilmanovich was charged with remains unknown. The jour­nal­ist’s attempts to learn details of the case yield­ed no results. But among the mate­r­i­al evi­dence, the inves­ti­ga­tion men­tioned “screen­shots from an author’s blog with arti­cles,” which the court ordered to be “kept with the crim­i­nal case files.” There­fore, Uladz­imir is con­vinced he was pun­ished specif­i­cal­ly for his jour­nal­is­tic work.