MINSK -- Noted Belarusian journalist and photographer Zmitser Bayarovich and his wife, Valeria, have gone on trial for taking part in mass rallies against the official results of an August 2020 presidential election that handed victory to authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Judge Yulia Inchyna of Minsk's Lenin district court started the trial on July 19.
Bayarovich and his wife were arrested in March near their apartment building. Human rights groups in Belarus have recognized the couple as political prisoners.
Zmitser Bayarovich worked at the STV state television channel, but resigned in 2020 to protest Lukashenka's brutal dispersal of peaceful demonstrators.
Also on July 19, another judge for the Lenin district court in the Belarusian capital, Maryna Klimchuk, started the trial of a former leading member of the Hurma rock group, Mikita Naydzyonau, who also took part in anti-Lukashenka rallies in August 2020.
Naydzyonau was arrested in late March and charged with taking part in group actions that grossly violate public order. He was also recognized as a political prisoner by Belarusian human right groups.
Many journalists, rights activists, and representatives of democratic institutions have been jailed in Belarus since an August 2020 presidential election that opposition politicians, ordinary Belarusians, and Western governments said were rigged.
Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests over the results and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.
Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition and many of its leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country.
The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the crackdown.