Law enforcement officers interrogated Siarhei Skulavets's mother twice, wanting to know if he planned to return to Belarus. They told her that he would "be considered a criminal no matter what, even if the political situation changes".
This statement was originally published on baj.media on 1 July 2025.
Law enforcement officers were interested in whether journalist Siarhei Skulavets was planning to return to Belarus. However, as they told his mother, “he will be considered a criminal no matter what, even if the political situation changes.”
On June 24, Siarhei Skulavets’s mother was summoned to the Investigative Committee office in the Ivatsevichy District.
“The investigator, right in front of my mom, pulled out a thick folder with my so-called case file, showed her photos of me — including pictures taken in the U.S. — and asked her to identify me. At the end, he asked if I was planning to return,” Skulavets wrote on his Facebook page.
Three days later, on June 27, criminal investigators from the Ivatsevichy District Police came to his mother’s home. They demanded to check her phone, examined her social media and messaging apps, and specifically looked through her messages with her son. Again, they asked whether Siarhei was planning to return. They told her that “he will still be considered a criminal,” even if the political situation in the country changes.
“But it could just as easily happen that they swap places with the people they now call criminals,” Siarhei Skulavets noted in his post.
One of the investigators even saved his phone number in Siarhei’s mother’s phone — to pass along to her son. They suggested that he should call the local police department himself, “but no aggressive behaviour.” Siarhei says he has no intention of calling:
“I have nothing to tell them. The Investigative Committee told my mom I’d be arrested the moment I set foot in Belarus. But my mom knows I’m not a criminal — I haven’t done anything wrong. The only thing that hurts is that they keep terrorizing my relatives.
After they raided my 86-year-old grandmother’s home around New Year’s eve, she only lived for a few more weeks. Maybe the stress from that played a role.”
According to Skulavets, the authorities’ increased activity might be connected to the fact that his criminal case is being prepared for trial. He still doesn’t know the exact charges, but relatives have been told the case is “related to Belsat.”
Siarhei Skulavets now lives in the United States. He and his family left Belarus in the summer of 2023 after being warned that another wave of repression against independent journalists was coming.
