Exiled journalist Aksana Kolb hit with new charges as Belarus upgrades her sentence to prison

Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist Aksana Kolb, for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the inde­pen­dent news­pa­per Novy Chas, now faces new crim­i­nal charges for “aid­ing extrem­ism” and “par­tic­i­pa­tion in riots.” Author­i­ties have also upgrad­ed her pre­vi­ous sen­tence of con­fine­ment in an open cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty with a prison term.

Aksana Kolb. Pho­to: Screen­shot from video

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee in Brest opened the new case against Kolb at the end of 2023, though the exact charges were only revealed recent­ly.

In sum­mer 2024, the gov­ern­ment seized a plot of land belong­ing to Kolb. At the time, she sus­pect­ed it was linked to the new case but received no offi­cial notice.

Ear­li­er, she had been sum­moned to a hear­ing sched­uled for March 19, 2025, in the Val­ozhyn Dis­trict Court, which sought to replace her lighter sen­tence with a harsh­er one. In 2022, Kolb had been sen­tenced to two and a half years of con­fine­ment in an open cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty, after which she was tem­porar­i­ly released and left Belarus.

“On Novem­ber 11, 2025, a police offi­cer from Min­sk called me and said that a case had been opened under Arti­cle 361–4 (aid­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty) and Arti­cle 342 (par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that con­sti­tute a severe breach of pub­lic order),” Kolb told BAJ.

The Val­ozhyn court has now replaced her pre­vi­ous sen­tence with one year, one month, and three days in prison.

Accord­ing to Kolb, police in Min­sk had been search­ing for her for near­ly two years, vis­it­ing her pre­vi­ous address­es and con­tact­ing rel­a­tives.

“They final­ly called to ask whether I plan to apply for return under the so-called ‘return com­mis­sion’ guar­an­tees,” she said. “I told them I’d return — but not under this regime.”

Kolb believes her case is now in its final stage of inves­ti­ga­tion and will soon go to tri­al.

Aksana Kolb. Pho­to by Dzmit­ry Dzmit­ryeu

The persecution of Aksana Kolb

Kolb was arrest­ed on April 20, 2022, when a group of armed offi­cers with shields and sledge­ham­mers raid­ed her apart­ment and took her for ques­tion­ing to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. Two days lat­er, she was charged with orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that con­sti­tute a severe breach of pub­lic order.

On June 15, 2022, Judge Dzmit­ry Kar­siuk of the Min­sk Tsen­tral­ny Dis­trict Court found her guilty and sen­tenced her to two and a half years of con­fine­ment in an open cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. She was released in the court­room and lat­er left Belarus.

In fall 2022, the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs added Kolb to its list of indi­vid­u­als alleged­ly involved in “extrem­ist activ­i­ties.”

Kolb had led Novy Chas, one of Belarus’s last remain­ing inde­pen­dent nation­al news­pa­pers, for more than eight years. She was the paper’s sec­ond edi­tor-in-chief after its founder, Ales Karol.

In 2022, Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions named Aksana Kolb the “Jour­nal­ist of the Year.”