IFJ President Younes MJahed: We strongly condemn liquidation BAJ

On 27 August the Belarus Supreme Court in Min­sk held a hear­ing on the dis­so­lu­tion of BAJ, the IFJ and EFJ affil­i­ate in Belarus. For over 25 years, BAJ and its mem­ber­ship of over 1,300 media work­ers has pro­mot­ed free­dom of expres­sion and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism in Belarus, facil­i­tat­ing the exer­cise of civ­il, social, and cul­tur­al rights.

BAJ is among dozens of organ­i­sa­tions tar­get­ed for liq­ui­da­tion, with oth­ers includ­ing cul­tur­al, envi­ron­men­tal and her­itage pro­tec­tion groups, the Belaru­sian PEN Cen­tre, the Office for the Rights of Dis­abled Peo­ple, the Nation­al Youth Coun­cil, the Belarus Press Club, organ­i­sa­tions focus­ing on gen­der rights, and groups that sup­port old­er peo­ple.

“After organ­is­ing fraud­u­lent elec­tions to keep him­self in pow­er, the Belaru­sian dic­ta­tor, Alexan­der Lukashenko, pro­ceeds to an out­right liq­ui­da­tion of all sec­tors of Belaru­sian civ­il soci­ety,” said EFJ Pres­i­dent Mogens Blich­er Bjer­regård. “This is an unprece­dent­ed purge that should mobilise inter­gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions. We call on the Euro­pean Union, the Coun­cil of Europe, the OSCE and the Unit­ed Nations to react firm­ly. The liq­uida­tors and the forces of repres­sion must be severe­ly pun­ished.”

«The deci­sion of the Belaru­sian Supre­mer Court is the result of months of attacks against our affil­i­ate and we strong­ly con­demn this. BAJ has been coura­geous­ly defend­ing press free­dom for years in Belarus and jour­nal­ists bad­ly need its sup­port. We are stand­ing by BAJ in the name of press free­dom and free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion,» said IFJ Pres­i­dent Younes MJa­hed.