The European Union has condemned as "shameful and politically motivated" the sentencing in Belarus of Darya Losik, the wife of jailed RFE/RL journalist Ihar Losik, to two years in prison on a charge of facilitating extremist activity.
In a statement on January 25, the EU's diplomatic service, the EEAS, said a Brest court's verdict last week was the latest unfair action "supporting [authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka's] regime repression against the people of Belarus."
"Darya Losik was sentenced to two years in prison for defending her husband in interviews against fabricated accusations and for appealing to Lukashenka on her husband's innocence," it said.
In her case, Judge Mikalay Hryharovich of the Brest regional court pronounced the verdict and handed down the sentence on January 19, one day after the trial started. The sentence was exactly what the prosecutor had requested.
The Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.
The Prosecutor-General's Office has said the charge against Darya Losik stems from an interview she gave to the Poland-based Belsat television channel that has been officially labeled as an extremist group by Minsk. During the interview she "positioned herself as the wife of a 'political prisoner,'" the office said.
Darya Losik was detained in October after police searched her home. The 4-year-old daughter of Darya and Ihar Losik, Paulina, is currently with Darya's parents.
The EEAS noted that with the verdict, Paulina Losik "is now left without parents."
The United States has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Darya Losik, while RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has also demanded her immediate release and condemned her detainment by Belarusian authorities.
Ihar Losik was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December last year on charges that remain unclear. The husband of exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Syarhey Tsikhanouski, as well as four other bloggers and opposition politicians and activists, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms along with Losik at the time.
Losik and other defendants have insisted that the case against them is politically motivated.
Belarus has been targeted by Western sanctions since a flawed presidential election in 2020 that was followed by unprecedented street protests and a massive crackdown under strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka that forced nearly the entire leadership of the political opposition into jail or to flee abroad.
"Almost every day there are new examples in Belarus of arbitrary and cruel sentences in political trials held behind closed doors," the EEAS's statement said. "The repression by the regime of Lukashenka has reached an unprecedented level, with more than 1,440 political prisoners, now affecting also the most vulnerable -- children."