Dozens of European directors, actors and other artists have called on Serbian authorities not to extradite a Belarusian activist back to Belarus. In an open letter published on Monday, the artists warn that Andrei Gnyot faces “imprisonment, torture and even the death penalty” if sent back to Belarus.
Gnyot, a film-maker who was instrumental in organising an alliance of athletes to oppose the dictatorial rule of Alexander Lukashenko, was detained on arrival in Serbia last year after Belarus issued a warrant for his arrest on tax evasion charges via Interpol. He says the charges are political.
Gnyot spent seven months in jail in Belgrade before being released to house arrest in June. A Serbian court will hear his final appeal in the case on Tuesday, after several decisions have gone against him. If this appeal fails, Gnyot could be deported at any time, with a veto from the country’s justice minister the last chance to avoid being sent back.
“He is known for making documentary footage during the Belarus 2020 protests and recording athletes’ appeals for free and fair elections. He is being prosecuted by the Belarusian authoritarian regime for these activities,” said the letter, whose signatories include the French actor and president of the European Film Academy, Juliette Binoche; the Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich; the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov; and the Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov, who was formerly a political prisoner in Russia.
“The Serbian authorities should consult international human rights organisations, which in this case are calling for the immediate release of Gnyot, emphasising that the charges are politically motivated,” said the award-winning Polish director Agnieszka Holland, who also signed the letter. “Now, it is a matter of life and death for this film-maker. If extradited, Andrei faces torture, years in inhumane conditions or worse.”
The UK-based Belarusian actor Mitya Savelau, who organised the letter, said there was little doubt the regime was abusing Interpol by demanding arrest warrants in political cases despite the agency’s ban on doing so, disguising them as economic crimes.
Savelau pointed to the fact that in 2021, authorities in Minsk tried to issue an arrest warrant for the political leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country after a crackdown on protests in 2020 that followed her defeat by Lukashenko in a presidential election widely seen as rigged.
“Interpol refused to go through with it, but it unveiled the tactic that has been since repeatedly used by Lukashenko to track down Belarusian democracy activists,” said Savelau.
“In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential elections and Lukashenko’s crackdown on the protesters, between 300,000 to 500,000 Belarusians had to flee the country to safety. And all of us are in danger of being in a situation like Andrei.”
In June, numerous Belarusian athletes told the Guardian Gnyot had been active in organising the movement of dissident athletes. “Andrei played a big role. A lot of sportspeople didn’t understand how to organise or make videos, and he helped us a lot,” said Aliaksandra Herasimenia, a swimmer who won two Olympic silver medals in London in 2012 and was later sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison. She lives in exile.
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Aware that there could be a criminal case opened against him, Gnyot left Belarus in 2021 and later settled in Thailand. He was arrested at Belgrade airport in October when he arrived in Serbia to shoot a television commercial.
In a message sent from Belgrade, Gnyot appealed to the Serbian justice minister to block his extradition if the court ruled against him, but said he “felt nothing” after the lengthy court ordeal.
“In the 10 months of waiting to be sent to my death, all my feelings have been burned out. I will only fight for truth and justice, for my life and for the lives of other Belarusians, because torture and death await us in dictatorship,” he said.
