“Turkmenization is underway in Belarus.” Experts comment on situation with independent journalism in Belarus based on new BAJ and JFJ report

“The perpetrators are predominantly public officers”

The speak­ers, who includ­ed media experts, human rights activists, and politi­cians, acknowl­edged that the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus has been over­shad­owed by the war in Ukraine. How­ev­er, it demands the atten­tion of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty because of the bru­tal repres­sion of civ­il soci­ety and jour­nal­ism.

British human rights activist Baroness Hele­na Kennedy assured:

“For our part, we con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus. We pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to vio­la­tions of free­dom of speech and the rights of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism. We do our best to sup­port the media and restore jus­tice”.

Accord­ing to the authors of the report, attacks via judi­cial and/or eco­nom­ic means were the most com­mon method of exert­ing pres­sure on media work­ers. Such attacks account­ed for 90 per­cent of the total in 2021 and approx­i­mate­ly 94 per­cent in 2022.

“This year the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists was rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, and a few days ago our web­site, social media pages, and even logo were declared extrem­ist. So you are now lis­ten­ing to an extrem­ist, and shar­ing this report in Belarus entails crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty,” BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets com­ment­ed iron­i­cal­ly on the lat­est actions of the regime.

He stressed that the decrease in the over­all num­ber of attacks is linked to the so-called Turk­m­eniza­tion of Belarus: there are few­er legal­ly work­ing jour­nal­ists in the coun­try to be per­se­cut­ed. Some have been arrest­ed, oth­ers have fled the coun­try and oth­ers have left the pro­fes­sion.

“The per­pe­tra­tors are pre­dom­i­nant­ly pub­lic offi­cers, and this is char­ac­ter­is­tic of what is hap­pen­ing in Belarus,” said the head of the BAJ.

Journalists are given harsher punishments than murderers

The crim­i­nal­iza­tion of jour­nal­ism con­tin­ues. Crim­i­nal penal­ties for media work­ers, the report notes, have become more severe. In par­tic­u­lar, reporters are being sen­tenced to terms longer than those for vio­lent crimes such as mur­der.

“In terms of media free­dom, Belarus is on a par with such coun­tries as Azer­bai­jan and Afghanistan,” said Maria Ordzhonikidze, direc­tor of the Jus­tice for Jour­nal­ists Foun­da­tion.

She point­ed out that the web­sites of many inde­pen­dent media in Belarus are blocked on such far-fetched pre­texts as dis­cred­it­ing the author­i­ties, incit­ing social hatred, and oth­ers, which is very sim­i­lar to the sit­u­a­tion in oth­er coun­tries with the most bru­tal dic­ta­to­r­i­al regimes.

This is con­firmed by the data indi­cat­ed in the report. The num­ber of cas­es relat­ed to media clo­sures, obstruc­tion of print pub­li­ca­tions, and restrict­ing access to online media has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly even in com­par­i­son with 2020.

“Belarus could be an exam­ple of how a dic­ta­tor­ship devel­ops in the absence of inde­pen­dent media and a sup­pressed civ­il soci­ety,” not­ed Robert Seely, a mem­ber of the British Par­lia­ment.

The most fright­en­ing thing is that not all cas­es of harass­ment of press rep­re­sen­ta­tives are in the pub­lic eye. The report says that often jour­nal­ists and their fam­i­lies are afraid to dis­close attacks after intim­i­da­tion by secu­ri­ty forces.

Some­times reporters con­sid­er cer­tain types of rights vio­la­tions, such as restrict­ing access to infor­ma­tion, to be insignif­i­cant and there­fore do not report them.

The harassment continues even behind bars

Of great con­cern is the pres­sure exert­ed on jour­nal­ists (cur­rent­ly 30+ media work­ers are behind bars in Belarus) while they are in cus­tody.

“Polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing jour­nal­ists, are placed in over­crowd­ed cells,” the report states, “deprived of basic ameni­ties such as bed­ding and hygiene prod­ucts, sub­ject­ed to vio­lence, kept in the cold with­out warm cloth­ing, strip-searched, deprived of sleep and the abil­i­ty to con­tact rel­a­tives and denied med­ical care”.

Anoth­er method of pres­sure that the authors of the report point out is the pub­li­ca­tion of “repen­tant” videos of impris­oned jour­nal­ists, appar­ent­ly record­ed under duress.

These videos are then broad­cast on state tele­vi­sion and pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nels.

“Accord­ing to Reporters With­out Bor­ders, Belarus ranks fifth in the num­ber of impris­oned jour­nal­ists and fourth in the num­ber of female jour­nal­ists,” empathized Andrei Bas­tunets.

Raids are just one of many forms of harassment

The state per­se­cu­tion is not lim­it­ed to arrests and deten­tions of inde­pen­dent media work­ers.

Recent­ly, the main meth­ods of pres­sure on jour­nal­ists have been depri­va­tion of access to infor­ma­tion, harass­ment, intim­i­da­tion, death threats, and hack­ing into jour­nal­ists’ social media accounts, the report con­cludes.

Accord­ing to the report’s authors, the num­ber of cyber attacks, includ­ing hacks of jour­nal­ists’ emails and Telegram chan­nels, has risen sharply.

RFE/RL Belarus, Nasha Niva, Onlin­er, Char­ter 97, Nar­o­d­naya Volya, Brest­skaya Gaze­ta, Avto­biznes, and oth­ers were sub­ject­ed to such attacks.

In addi­tion, jour­nal­ists have faced con­stant undue obstruc­tion of their pro­fes­sion­al duties dur­ing court ses­sions.

Last year the num­ber of such cas­es decreased, but only because of the ‘Turk­m­eniza­tion” process.

“The media sector has shown tremendous resilience and ability to resist”

Accord­ing to Robert Seely, the Krem­lin has long used Belarus as a plat­form for Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da.

“The sup­pres­sion of protests in 2020 was a con­se­quence of Russia’s long-stand­ing takeover,” said the British MP.

Belarus, he added, has become a spring­board for test­ing polit­i­cal tech­nolo­gies for Moscow, and the prac­tices test­ed have been quite suc­cess­ful.

“Belarus used to have a strong media sec­tor,” said Maria Sadouskaya-Kom­lach, head of Free Press Unlim­it­ed. “But when the regime expelled so many jour­nal­ists, the coun­try had no sources of infor­ma­tion oth­er than the state media. And those who find them­selves out­side the coun­try have to start prac­ti­cal­ly from scratch.”

Experts agree that coun­ter­ing pro­pa­gan­da remains the most impor­tant goal of the inde­pen­dent media now oper­at­ing in exile.

“But it is only pos­si­ble to put pres­sure on some­thing that resists,” Bas­tunets con­clud­ed. “The media sec­tor has shown tremen­dous resilience and abil­i­ty to resist.”

Read more:

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E‑NEWSLETTER – MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS №2 (72)