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The pos­si­ble clo­sure of the Belaru­sian divi­sion of the LSM+ Lat­vian media out­let has sparked wide­spread con­cern not only among the Belaru­sian dias­po­ra in Latvia. BAJ looked into the issue and spoke with Lat­vian MP Leila Rasi­ma, as well as with com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Unit­ed Tran­si­tion­al Cab­i­net of Belarus.

Inde­pen­dent media can be destroyed, jour­nal­ists can be impris­oned — but they can­not be forced into silence. The start­ing point of the newest Belaru­sian his­to­ry was August 9, 2020 — the day of vot­ing in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that nev­er tru­ly hap­pened. That day marked the begin­ning of a total purge of Belarus’s demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety.

Deter­mined not to let the facts of per­se­cu­tion and repres­sion against jour­nal­ists dis­ap­pear in the infor­ma­tion flow or per­ceived as white noise, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists launched the project “Jour­nal­ists: The Silent Mode.”

The project “Jour­nal­ists: The Silent Mode” is a visu­al form of resis­tance to the qui­et era­sure of jour­nal­ists from pub­lic space, the pro­fes­sion, and life — a process that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have been delib­er­ate­ly car­ry­ing out for the past five years. Belaruss­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists spoke with vis­i­tors to the exhi­bi­tion at the con­fer­ence […]

 Today, Belarus is one of the largest pris­ons in the world for inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists, with 39 cur­rent­ly behind bars.

The Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (IFJ) joins its affil­i­ate, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists’ (BAJ), in call­ing for the imme­di­ate release of all jour­nal­ists and media work­ers unjust­ly impris­oned. The IFJ demands that the author­i­ties cease the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of jour­nal­ism, as well as the harass­ment of jour­nal­ists in Belarus, in exile and their fam­i­ly mem­bers.

The case against free­lance jour­nal­ist Danil Palian­s­ki was heard by the Brest Region­al Court. Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), the tri­al began in mid-July 2025 and was held behind closed doors. The ver­dict was deliv­ered on July 25.

Poland was the coun­try that ini­ti­at­ed the journalist’s ban, and for sev­er­al years Ali­ak­san­dr Burak­ou has been try­ing to uncov­er the spe­cif­ic alle­ga­tions that result­ed in his pro­hi­bi­tion from enter­ing mul­ti­ple Schen­gen Agree­ment mem­ber states.

The man­age­ment of Latvia’s pub­lic media out­let, LSM, has devel­oped strate­gic pri­or­i­ties for 2026–2029. The Belaru­sian-lan­guage ver­sion of the site appears like­ly to last only until the end of this year, as Belaru­sian is not even men­tioned in the new strat­e­gy.

Dzmit­ry Kazlou, a vlog­ger from Baran known to his fol­low­ers as “Sery Kot” (Grey Cat), is cur­rent­ly serv­ing an addi­tion­al one-year prison sen­tence in Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 20, a high-secu­ri­ty prison in the Mazyr Dis­trict. The sen­tence was hand­ed for dis­obe­di­ence to prison admin­is­tra­tion.

The fol­low­ing jour­nal­ists are in jail at the moment. Kat­siary­na Andree­va, Ihar Losik, Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, Andrej Pachobut (Andrzej Poc­zobut), Mary­na Zolata­va,  Liud­mi­la Chek­ina,  Valer­i­ja Kast­si­u­go­va,  Dzmit­ryi Navazhy­lau,  Iry­na Slau­nika­va Siarhei Sat­suk,  Kanstantsin Zalatykh,  Pavel Mazhei­ka,  Yauhen Merkis,  Andrei Famin,  Larysa Shchyrako­va,  Pavel Pad­abed, Viachaslau Laza­rau, Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, Ales Sabaleus­ki, Ali­ak­san­dr Ihnat­siuk Yauhen Hlushk­ou Ales […]

The infor­ma­tion appeared on July 9 in the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of Extrem­ist Con­tent, which is main­tained on the web­site of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus.

The right bar­onies of Belarus made a state­ment on July 9.

Mass media in Belarus 2024. Down­load PDF.

Law enforce­ment offi­cers were inter­est­ed in whether jour­nal­ist Siarhei Skulavets was plan­ning to return to Belarus. How­ev­er, as they told his moth­er, “he will be con­sid­ered a crim­i­nal no mat­ter what, even if the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion changes.”