ANDREI BASTUNETS: Today, the law does not defend us

Today, the law does not defend us

From the begin­ning of the year to mid-Sep­tem­ber, BAJ record­ed more than 300 cas­es of gross vio­la­tions of jour­nal­ists’ rights. Absolute major­i­ty of them occurred in the post-elec­tion peri­od, that is, in just 1.5 months. There were over 170 deten­tions dur­ing that peri­od, in 52 cas­es, the jour­nal­ists faced vio­lence, beat­ings, dam­age or seizure of their equip­ment, many col­leagues were held in cus­tody and sen­tenced to short jail terms… In a peace­ful coun­try, reporters worked lit­er­al­ly under bul­lets! Two jour­nal­ists were wound­ed, anoth­er one was stunned by a stun grenade… All this — despite the assur­ances of Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Yuri Karayev that “the press is sacred. What­ev­er [jour­nal­ist] may be, they can­not be touched.” Alas, in prac­tice, these words are either ignored or the secu­ri­ty forces actu­al­ly receive oppo­site instruc­tions.

Today, the law does not defend us.

We have long been used to «tech­ni­cal­i­ties» that become the rea­son for blocked news web­sites at the most intense moments of polit­i­cal cam­paigns or dur­ing mass protests. But, liv­ing in an «IT coun­try», we could hard­ly imag­ine an Inter­net black­out for three entire days! How­ev­er, the secu­ri­ty ser­vices did not for­get about the web­sites either. Since August 9, many news web­sites have become inac­ces­si­ble in Belarus with­out any expla­na­tion or warn­ing. Only on August 21, the author­i­ties real­ized they need­ed legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for block­ing and decid­ed that “harm to nation­al inter­ests” is a good enough pre­text to restrict access to dozens of news web­sites, includ­ing the most pop­u­lar ones.

Then they thought of the way to expand the «tar­get audi­ence» whose access to infor­ma­tion should be lim­it­ed. Sev­er­al news­pa­pers were not print­ed for absolute­ly far-fetched or no rea­sons at all. The news­pa­pers that man­aged to print their issues abroad were turned down by the reg­u­lar dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels. “Nar­o­d­naya Volya”, “Kom­so­mol­ka”, “Bel­gaze­ta”, “Svo­bod­nye Novosti”… Now they face penal­ties for alleged non-ful­fill­ment of their oblig­a­tions. Fire in one hand and water in the oth­er? If only their hands would be tied — strict­ly by virtue of law — but

Today, the law does not defend us.

We are used to the prob­lems of free­lance jour­nal­ists. Every year they receive huge fines. The author­i­ties fine Belaru­sian cit­i­zens who coop­er­ate with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion from the MFA. Accred­i­ta­tion that is sim­ply impos­si­ble to get. The fine jour­nal­ists under no valid legal rea­sons (arti­cle 22.9, part 2 is a stretch; it does not pro­vide for lia­bil­i­ty of jour­nal­ists coop­er­at­ing with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion). But things have only got­ten worse this year. At first, more than a hun­dred for­eign jour­nal­ists were not grant­ed short-term accred­i­ta­tion for the elec­tion peri­od (on the pre­text of coro­n­avirus, which did not exist in Belarus, the author­i­ties claimed ear­li­er). Then, 17 cor­re­spon­dents of well-known for­eign media were deprived of their per­ma­nent accred­i­ta­tions. For­eign jour­nal­ists were sim­ply expelled from the coun­try (and some of them beat­en as a farewell).

Today, the law does not defend us.

But, in fact, we saw a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion 25 years ago. BAJ was cre­at­ed in response to the sharp increase in pres­sure on jour­nal­ists and the media after the per­son who promised free­dom to the press came to pow­er. “White spots” in news­pa­pers, deten­tions, crim­i­nal cas­es against jour­nal­ists, clo­sure of pub­li­ca­tions, threats and even mur­ders…

And yet jour­nal­ists con­tin­ue to work. No mat­ter what. Blocked web­sites dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion through “mir­rors”, telegram chan­nels and social net­works (while cit­i­zens rapid­ly raise their infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy and learn how to bypass the bans). Vol­un­teers dis­trib­ute Nar­o­d­naya Volya, spread­ing the print run in just one day. Jour­nal­ists stay overnight in front of police depart­ments and deten­tion cen­tres wait­ing for their col­leagues to come out. They con­tin­ue to do their job: to find, receive and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion.

I have enor­mous respect for every­one who works in the field despite all the risks and threats. Every­one who works in the news­rooms. Every­one who refused to mul­ti­ply the lies by resign­ing from the pro­pa­gan­dist media. Every­one who sup­ports their col­leagues in deten­tion cen­ters and courts, and helps them in word and in deed. Every­one who con­tributes to spread­ing infor­ma­tion about what is hap­pen­ing in Belarus and abroad. Every­one who chose to stay out­side the frowsy media space that the “peo­ple in black” are try­ing to cre­ate.

Today, the law does not defend us.                                                                           

Today we defend the law.