The Belarusian Association of Journalists is under attack

Ear­ly in the morn­ing of 16 Feb­ru­ary, BAJ press sec­re­tary Barys Haret­s­ki was briefly detained by Belaru­sian secu­ri­ty forces. BAJ’s lawyer Aleh Aheyeu and BAJ’s pres­i­dent Andrei Bas­tunets were also detained to wit­ness the search of BAJ’s offices. Oth­er search­es and raids were under way Tues­day morn­ing at the homes and offices of jour­nal­ists and human rights activists in var­i­ous cities across the coun­try.

These police oper­a­tions tar­get sev­er­al organ­i­sa­tions that posi­tion them­selves as human rights organ­i­sa­tions. These pros­e­cu­tions are car­ried out on the basis of Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code, for “organ­is­ing and prepar­ing actions that seri­ous­ly vio­late pub­lic order”. The inves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to iden­ti­fy the sources of fund­ing for the mass demon­stra­tions organ­ised in the coun­try to con­test the out­come of the fraud­u­lent elec­tions of 9 August 2020.

Riot police offi­cers vis­it­ed the home of free­lance jour­nal­ist Lar­isa Shchyrako­va in Homel. The author­i­ties claim that she is want­ed in con­nec­tion with a crim­i­nal case under Arti­cle 362 of the Crim­i­nal Code (mur­der of an employ­ee of the inter­nal affairs admin­is­tra­tion). Anoth­er jour­nal­ist from Homel, Ana­toly Gotov­chits, is also want­ed.

Search­es were also con­duct­ed at the home of jour­nal­ist Ales Burak­ou Jr. in Mahilou and at the home of the press sec­re­tary of the Belaru­sian Human Rights House Barys Zvozkau.

The EFJ calls on the OSCE, the Coun­cil of Europe and the Euro­pean Union to take action in order to restore the rule of law in Belarus.

“For weeks we have been denounc­ing the inten­si­fied repres­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic forces in Belarus. After admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against jour­nal­ists, the Belaru­sian dic­ta­tor­ship is now attack­ing the rep­re­sen­ta­tive organ­i­sa­tion of jour­nal­ists. It is high time for the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to final­ly take action to put an end to the abus­es of ille­git­i­mate Pres­i­dent Lukashenko,” said EFJ Pres­i­dent Mogens Blich­er Bjer­regård.