Belarus Polish Radio journalist 'committed suicide'

Juryj Humianiuk recites a poem during a meeting at the University Collegium Civitas in the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw: photo - wikipedia cc / Bladyniec

Humianiuk, who worked as a local correspondent for the Belarusian section at Polish Radio under the alias Waclaw Halinski, fell from the 8th floor of a boarding house in Grodno, western Belarus, on 19 January this year.

A Belarusian official from the investigative committee in Grodno told the independent BiełaPAN news agency that the 44 year-old Humianiuk was registered at a psychiatric clinic and was being treated for alcoholism.

"A few hours before his death, he tried to cut himself with a knife,” the official said.

“In view of such evidence, the Belarusian Investigative Committee decided not to initiate criminal proceedings in the absence of a criminal offence,” he said.

There was some disbelief after initial reports that Jury Humianiuk had commuted suicide in a country where the persecution of journalists is not uncommon under the authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Humianiuk had been detained for twelve days in the summer of 2011, during the so-called 'silent protests' held by opponents of President Lukashenko's regime.

Nina Barszczewska, head of Polish Radio's Belarusian section, said after his death that it was hard for her to believe that Humianiuk committed suicide.

Paying tribute to his contributions under difficult circumstances for Polish Radio's External Service from Grodno, where many of the Polish-Belarusian minority live, she noted that “he reacted very quickly to events that took place in the Grodno region.”

Humianiuk belonged to the independent Association of Belarusian Writers and was a long-standing contributor to the Czasopis journal, based in Bialystok, north east Poland. (pg/nh)