11th BAJ Congress elects Andrei Bastunets as Chair, and adds a new face to deputy chairs PHOTOS

At the begin­ning of the Con­gress the del­e­gates paid trib­ute to the mem­o­ry of BAJ mem­bers who have died since the pre­vi­ous con­gress:

Valer Shchukin
 Ales Lipai
 Yury Ziss­er
 Yury Varonezht­sau
 Uladz­imir Mialesh­ka
 Vik­tar Val­adaschuk
 Lubou Ziamtso­va
 Vasil Matske­vich
 Uladz­imir Tou­st­sik
 Alexan­der Vasileus­ki

Then numer­ous mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty from inter­na­tion­al human rights and jour­nal­ist orga­ni­za­tions were read:  Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, PEN Inter­na­tion­al  IFEX, Index of cen­sor­ship, Reporters With­out Bor­ders ARTICLE 19 and oth­ers.

The del­e­gates men­tioned the names of jour­nal­ists who are cur­rent­ly in jail:

Kat­siary­na Andreye­va
 Daria Chultso­va
 Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich
 Yulia Slut­skaya
 Alla Sharko
 Siarhei Alsheus­ki
 Peter Slut­sky
 Kse­nia Lut­ski­na
 Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau
 Dzia­n­is Ivashyn
 Andrzej Pac­zobut
 Siarhei Hardziye­vich (under house arrest)

Human rights activist, BAJ mem­ber Leanid Sudalen­ka, Iry­na Zlobi­na (arrest­ed togeth­er with Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau), and BAJ mem­bers, colum­nist  Alexan­der Fiadu­ta and politi­cian Pavel Seviarynets are also behind bars.

BAJ chair­man report­ed to the Con­gress on BAJ activ­i­ties and achieve­ments over the past three years.

Andrei Bas­tunets stressed that the orga­ni­za­tion had been work­ing towards its statu­to­ry goals and objec­tives, despite all the cir­cum­stances faced by the com­mu­ni­ty in gen­er­al and BAJ in par­tic­u­lar.

«In 2019, our edu­ca­tion­al events were at the core of our activ­i­ties, but, obvi­ous­ly, in 2020 we focuced on human rights activ­i­ties, advo­ca­cy, and sup­port of the col­leagues who were per­se­cut­ed,» — said Bas­tunets.

Some BAJ mem­bers took part in the Con­gress via the Zoom plat­form.

Andrei Bas­tunets was elect­ed chair­per­son of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

His can­di­da­cy was sup­port­ed unan­i­mous­ly by the Con­gress del­e­gates.

 Aleh Aheeu, Alexan­der Staryke­vich,  Barys Haret­s­ki, and Iry­na Slau­nika­va were elect­ed deputy chairs.

The Board was elect­ed:

Andrei Bas­tunets,
 Aleh Aheeu,
 Barys Haret­s­ki,
 Alexan­der Staryke­vich,
 Iry­na Slau­nika­va,
 Iry­na Vidana­va,
Ali­na Suravets,
 Mary­na Zahorskaya,
 Yury Kar­manau,
 Zhan­na Litv­ina,
 Anton Surapin,
 Zoya Khrut­skaya,
 Barys Vyr­vich,
 Vol­ha Khvoin,
 Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich,
 Yulia Katarzhyn­skaya,
 Andrei Kliku­nou.

The new Coun­cil was elect­ed, too:

Andrei Bas­tunets,
Aleh Aheeu,
Barys Haret­s­ki,
Alexan­der Staryke­vich,
Iry­na Slau­nika­va,
Iry­na Vidana­va,
Mary­na Zahorskaya,
Yury Kar­manau,
Ali­na Suravets,
Zhan­na Litv­ina,

Anton Surapin,
Zoya Khrut­skaya,
Barys Vyr­vich,
Vol­ha Khvoin,
Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich,
Yulia Katarzhyn­skaya,
Andrei Kliku­nou,
Vol­ha Bara­nouskaya,
Miko­la Bianko,
Svi­at­lana Har­da,
Uladz­imir Dzi­u­ba,
Henadz Kesner,
Yahor Martsi­novich,
Ale­na Naskovich,
Tat­siana Smotk­i­na,
Zmitser Kaza­ke­vich,
Aksana Brovach,
Iry­na Leushy­na,
Aksana Kolb,
Alexan­der Ziank­ou

New Ethics Com­mis­sion:

Siarhei Vahanau,
 Dzmit­ry Pad­biarezs­ki,
 Ana­tol Hatouchyts,
 Valer Kar­bale­vich,
 Tat­siana Mel­nichuk,
 Dzmit­ry Pankavets,
 Tat­siana Ravi­a­ka.

The Congress delegates note that the conditions for media and the general situation with the freedom of expression in Belarus have significantly deteriorated in recent years:

• crim­i­nal and admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists, blog­gers, and oth­er media employ­ees vio­lates the stan­dards of free­dom of expres­sion, the inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions of Belarus and the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions on the right of every­one to receive, store and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion;

• the planned amend­ments to the law on the media will fur­ther lim­it the free­dom of expres­sion; no gen­uine dis­cus­sion of these amend­ments where rep­re­sen­ta­tives of media, civic soci­ety and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty could par­tic­i­pate only empha­sizes their repres­sive nature;

• State monop­oly on most of the elec­tron­ic and print media, as well as the print­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem makes the con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees of equal­i­ty of rights of enter­pris­es of dif­fer­ent own­er­ship and free­dom of expres­sion obso­lete;

• free­lance jour­nal­ists in Belarus still remain out­side the law.

The Con­gress points out the cat­a­stroph­ic decline in the qual­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment-fund­ed media, which do not adhere to even min­i­mal stan­dards of jour­nal­is­tic ethics, open­ly use hate speech and insult the «oppo­nents» of the rul­ing pow­er. On the oth­er hand, the Con­gress draws atten­tion to the appar­ent rise in the vol­ume of Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da in state media that endan­gers the infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty of Belarus.

The Con­gress demands:

• to imme­di­ate­ly release all impris­oned jour­nal­ists and media experts;

• to involve Belaru­sian soci­ety, jour­nal­is­tic and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties, as well as inter­na­tion­al experts in the dis­cus­sion of the changes in media leg­is­la­tion;

• to rec­og­nize leg­isla­tive­ly the right of every­one to col­lect and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion in local and for­eign mass media;

• to ensure unhin­dered access of jour­nal­ists to infor­ma­tion;

• to cre­ate equal eco­nom­ic con­di­tions for the media; to aban­don the state monop­oly in the fields of print­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts.

The Con­gress of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists calls on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties and soci­ety to pay excep­tion­al atten­tion to the sit­u­a­tion with the free­dom of speech, which is not only a part of fun­da­men­tal human rights and free­doms, but is also a cri­te­ri­on for main­tain­ing oth­er rights and free­doms.