Ihar Losik
After more than five years in prison, Ihar Losik was released on September 11, 2025.
Ihar Losik is a blogger and journalist for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda. Ihar was detained in Minsk on June 25, 2020, in advance of Belarus’ rigged election in August 2020. He was tried on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement to hatred.”
After a five-month trial held behind closed doors, Ihar was convicted on December 14, 2021, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Ihar’s appeal was denied on June 1, 2022, and he was transferred to a penal colony in Navapolatsk. In June 2022, the Belarusian government added him to its terrorist watch list.
Since his arrest, Ihar has faced severe physical and psychological pressures, including two debilitating hunger strikes and long periods of incommunicado detention. Prison authorities have sought to affect his mental state with frequent transfers to different cells and by denying mail privileges for extended periods of time. Reports suggest he suffered self-inflicted injuries during an incident on March 15, 2023.
U.S. and EU officials, as well as Belarusian and international human rights groups have recognized Ihar as a political prisoner and called for his release. German Bundestag Member Robin Wagener serves as an advocate for Ihar through the “godparenthood” campaign launched by Libereco.
In October 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Belarus violated international human rights law by imprisoning Ihar, concluding that his arrest and detention were “based solely on his journalistic activity and his exercise of the freedoms of expression and of association.”
In April 2025, Ihar’s brother, Mikita Losik, was detained on charges of “promoting extremist activity” for allegedly sending photographs of the movement of Russian military equipment in 2022 to a now-defunct Telegram channel. On July 8, 2025, Mikita was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in an open-type correctional facility. On July 22, 2025, Mikita fled Belarus.
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