E‑newsletter: MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS No.3 (81) 2025

Sit­u­a­tion in Belarus mass media field: July–September 2025. Review. Down­load PDF.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists observed the con­tin­u­a­tion of repres­sion against jour­nal­ists in Belarus and fur­ther restric­tions of access to infor­ma­tion in July – Sep­tem­ber 2025. It includ­ed the fol­low­ing trends:

• con­tin­u­a­tion of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of media work­ers, deten­tion, and oth­er forms of pres­sure on jour­nal­ists,
• the ban on a num­ber of unof­fi­cial sources of infor­ma­tion (includ­ing for­eign ones) under the guise of com­bat­ing extrem­ism,
• expan­sion of cen­sor­ship, includ­ing the actu­al involve­ment of peo­ple in com­pil­ing a list of books banned for dis­tri­b­u­tion.

At the same time, due to the diplo­mat­ic efforts of the Unit­ed States, a mass release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing jour­nal­ists and blog­gers, took place dur­ing the peri­od under review. 52 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were trans­ferred to Lithua­nia by the US del­e­ga­tion led by John Cole on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2025. The list includ­ed twelve media work­ers and blog­gers: Iry­na Slau­nika­va, Miko­la Dzi­adok, Pavel Mazhei­ka, Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, Larysa Shchyrako­va, Yauhen Merkis, Ale­na Tsi­maschuk, Viachaslau Laza­rau, Pavel Pad­abied, Ihar Losik, Zmitser Kazlou, and Pavel Vinahradau.

It is worth men­tion­ing that the major­i­ty of for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were deprived of their doc­u­ments and the pos­si­bil­i­ty to choose their coun­try of res­i­dence. The ‘lib­er­a­tion’ itself was depor­ta­tion in fact, since the for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were expelled from the Repub­lic of Belarus.

Noth­ing is known about the fate of Belaru­sian politi­cian Miko­la Statke­vich, who refused to leave Belarus under such con­di­tions.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists approved its Strat­e­gy of Activ­i­ties for 2025–2027 on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2025. The strat­e­gy indi­cates the need to return the orga­ni­za­tion and the entire inde­pen­dent media sec­tor to Belarus and restore its legal activ­i­ty in the coun­try. Also, it empha­sizes the impor­tance of the nation­al con­tent and the con­tent in the Belaru­sian lan­guage for pre­serv­ing the nation­al iden­ti­ty of audi­ences. 

CRIMINAL PROSECUTION. CASES OF DETENTION IN BELARUS

The crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists con­tin­ued inside the coun­try and ‘in absen­tia’.

Three jour­nal­ists and a blog­ger were con­vict­ed on crim­i­nal charges in July – Sep­tem­ber 2025, and 12 new crim­i­nal cas­es were filed dur­ing the peri­od under review. (9 of the crim­i­nal cas­es were filed against jour­nal­ists in exile).

A free­lance jour­nal­ist from Brest Dani­il Palian­s­ki was found guilty of ‘high trea­son’ (Arti­cle 356 of the Belarus Crim­i­nal Code) in a closed tri­al and sen­tenced to 10 years of impris­on­ment and a fine of about USD 7,135 on July 25, 2025. Due to the ‘con­fi­den­tial­i­ty’ of the tri­al, the actu­al essence of the charges remains unknown. 

Anoth­er jour­nal­ist from Brest Aleh Suprun­yuk was sen­tenced to 3 years in prison for the alleged ‘par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist group­ing’ on August 8, 2025. He pre­vi­ous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with a num­ber of inde­pen­dent media. Despite the fact that the jour­nal­ist has a dis­abil­i­ty, he was held in cus­tody for more than six months before tri­al.

Ihar Ilyash, a jour­nal­ist from Min­sk and hus­band of polit­i­cal pris­on­er and jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Andreye­va was sen­tenced to 4 years in prison in a max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty colony and a fine of 4,200 rubles for the alleged ‘dis­cred­i­ta­tion of Belarus’ (arti­cle 369–1 of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code) and ‘facil­i­ta­tion of extrem­ist activ­i­ties’ (arti­cle 361–4 of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code) on Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. 

Pali­na Zyl, a blog­ger from Mazyr (Homiel region) was sen­tenced to one year in a penal colony for the alleged ‘gross vio­la­tion of pub­lic order’ (arti­cle 342 of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code) on July 7, 2025. The media work­er remained in Belarus despite the fact that she had been includ­ed in the list of want­ed indi­vid­u­als by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties.

At least three jour­nal­ists were charged in crim­i­nal cas­es and tak­en into cus­tody in Belarus in the peri­od of July — Sep­tem­ber 2025. (It was only the name of Kiryl Paz­ni­ak that was dis­closed.)

Nine exiled Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were charged ‘in absen­tia’ in crim­i­nal cas­es dur­ing the peri­od under review. Among oth­er exiled media work­ers, the list of charged jour­nal­ists includ­ed the Bel­sat anchors Vol­ha Starastsi­na (2^nd crim­i­nal case) and Yaraslau Stse­shyk as well as the for­mer Bel­sat employ­ees Siarhei Skulavets and Andrei Mialesh­ka. The names of five oth­er charged jour­nal­ists were not dis­closed.

Blog­ger Mak­sim Shabut­s­ki was charged ‘in absen­tia’ under eigh­teen arti­cles of the Belarus Crim­i­nal Code.

Accord­ing to the BAJ Press Ser­vice, three inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists were detained in Belarus with­in the peri­od under review.

The ‘Plat­form 375’ YouTube chan­nel was labeled as an ‘extrem­ist group­ing’ on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2025. The jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak was detained on the same day and pro­nounced to be relat­ed to this chan­nel.

Eleven search­es were car­ried out at the hous­es of jour­nal­ists or their rel­a­tives, alleged­ly, in rela­tion to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, in July – Sep­tem­ber 2025.

Thus, the exiled free­lance jour­nal­ist Ali­ak­san­dr Hoishyk report­ed that police offi­cers had vis­it­ed his mother’s house in Sal­i­horsk, Min­sk region, look­ing for him as a ‘vicious extrem­ist.’

Polit­i­cal ana­lysts Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki, Piotr Rud­k­ous­ki and Aliak­san­dr Frid­man as well as jour­nal­ists Tatsiana Kar­a­vianko­va and Glafi­ra Zhuk were put on the Belarus / Rus­sia inter­state want­ed list with­in the peri­od under review. The media work­ers were clas­si­fied by the Belarus Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs as mem­bers of ‘Pozirk’ News Agency, labeled as an ‘extrem­ist group­ing.’

THE APPLICATION OF ANTI-EXTREMIST LEGISLATION TO PROSECUTE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

‘The strug­gle with extrem­ism’ was fur­ther used by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to restrict access to inde­pen­dent sources of infor­ma­tion and harass jour­nal­ists in July – Sep­tem­ber 2025.

Four more media projects were labeled by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties as ‘extrem­ist group­ings’, includ­ing ‘The News of Hrod­na and Hrod­na Region’, ‘Green Net­work’ that includes civ­il ini­tia­tives and projects ‘Belarus Bee­hive’, ‘Green Por­tal’, and ‘Eco­Home’, the ‘Belarus Tomor­row’ Stream­ing plat­form that unites lead­ing Belaru­sian media, blog­gers, and experts, as well as the ‘Plat­form 375’ YouTube chan­nel.

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus con­tin­ued to expand the Nation­al List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als. The fol­low­ing infor­mal infor­ma­tion sources were added to the broad list of mate­ri­als with­in the peri­od under review:

‘Delfi Lithua­nia’ YouTube chan­nel (DELFI.lt News Web­site has been blocked for access in Belarus since 2023), the Russ­ian jour­nal­ist and videoblog­ger Ilya Varlamov’s social media accounts, and the BAJ Deputy Chair­per­son Barys Haretski’s Insta­gram account.

The Mahilou Region­al Pub­lic Prosecutor’s Office banned access to the pop­u­lar ‘Glavkom’ News Web­site from Ukraine as well as the Web­sites of such human rights projects as the Belaru­sian ‘Human Rights Defend­ers against Tor­ture’ and the Russ­ian ‘Memo­r­i­al PZK’.

The KGB includ­ed the head of ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel Ali­na Koushyk in the ‘List of Orga­ni­za­tions and Indi­vid­u­als, Relat­ed to Ter­ror­ist Activ­i­ties.’ It is con­nect­ed to the fact that she used to have rela­tion to the Unit­ed Tran­si­tion­al Cab­i­net of Belarus, which was labeled by the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor General’s office as ‘a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion’ on July 9, 2025. 

The crim­i­nal­ly charged blog­gers Rus­lan Lin­nik (repeat­ed­ly sen­tenced to 4 years in prison) and Anton Matol­ka (sen­tenced ‘in absen­tia’ to 20 years in prison) were includ­ed in the ‘List of Cit­i­zens of the Repub­lic of Belarus, For­eign Cit­i­zens and State­less Per­sons Involved in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ties’ by the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or of Belarus. 

IDEOLOGIZATION AND CENSORSHIP IN THE MEDIA AND PUBLISHING FIELDS

New pro­vi­sions ‘On the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion’ were adopt­ed on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2025.  The Min­is­te­r­i­al list of pri­ma­ry objec­tives was sup­ple­ment­ed by ‘infor­ma­tion sup­port for ide­o­log­i­cal work in the Repub­lic of Belarus, pro­vi­sion of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for the imple­men­ta­tion of gov­ern­men­tal poli­cies in the field of mass media and pub­lish­ing.’ 

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus accel­er­at­ed its efforts to iden­ti­fy and ban the ‘unwant­ed’ books.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, 2025, Deputy Min­is­ter of Infor­ma­tion Dzia­n­is Yazier­s­ki not­ed dur­ing the live TV broad­cast that he hoped for the help of the pub­lic, who would be active and report on pub­li­ca­tions which should be includ­ed in the ‘List of print­ed pub­li­ca­tions con­tain­ing infor­ma­tion mes­sages and (or) mate­ri­als, which dis­tri­b­u­tion can harm the nation­al inter­ests of the Repub­lic of Belarus.’ At that time, accord­ing to Yazier­s­ki, the cur­rent list of banned pub­li­ca­tions includes ‘143–145 books.’

The list was sup­ple­ment­ed by 32 titles of books by the end of Sep­tem­ber 2025.