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Joint state­ment by the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty.

Polit­i­cal pris­on­er Vat­slau Aresh­ka marked his fourth birth­day behind bars on Jan­u­ary 18, turn­ing 71. Human rights defend­ers have includ­ed him on the list of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers with extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble health con­di­tions — Aresh­ka has lost almost all of his vision while impris­oned.

The new visu­al iden­ti­ty reflects the con­ti­nu­ity of BAJ’s val­ues — defend­ing free­dom of speech, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in the jour­nal­ist com­mu­ni­ty — while meet­ing con­tem­po­rary require­ments for brand­ing and dig­i­tal for­mats.

Jour­nal­ist Aleh Supruniuk, con­vict­ed for his pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties, has been sent to serve his sen­tence at Mahilou Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 15. For­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Ali­ak­san­dr Fiadu­ta, who was released from that same facil­i­ty and deport­ed from Belarus in Decem­ber of last year, shared details of his encoun­ters with Aleh Supruniuk.

Belaru­sian state-run media employ­ees are being invit­ed to the cap­i­tal of Bul­gar­ia for an event titled “Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and the Fight Against Fake News.” The dis­cus­sion is fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union.

He made kutya from oat­meal and drew a Christ­mas tree.

The fol­low­ing jour­nal­ists are in jail at the moment. Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, Andrej Pachobut (Andrzej Poc­zobut), Liud­mi­la Chek­ina, Dzmit­ryi Navazhy­lau, Siarhei Sat­suk, Andrei Famin, Ales Sabaleus­ki, Ali­ak­san­dr Ihnat­siuk Yauhen Hlushk­ou Vol­ha Radzivon­a­va Anton Kazel­s­ki Dami­il Palian­s­ki, Ihar Ilyash Siarhei Chabot­s­ka Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich Andrei Pakalen­ka Pali­na Pitke­vich Pavel Dabravol­s­ki Kiryl Paz­ni­ak Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak Aleh Khamen­ka Jour­nal­ist […]

The Belaru­sian Media Sec­tor in Num­bers. 28 media pro­fes­sion­als impris­oned. 34 search­es and inspec­tions of premis­es. 12 deten­tions. 42 media out­lets des­ig­nat­ed as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”. More than 100 cas­es of in absen­tia pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists. 26 media out­lets and orga­ni­za­tions joined the Code of Ethics of Belaru­sian Jour­nal­ists and the self-reg­u­la­tion sys­tem. 62 col­leagues com­plet­ed […]

On Decem­ber 23, the BAJ Board dis­cussed the con­clu­sion of an exter­nal expert and made a deci­sion in con­nec­tion with alle­ga­tions against BAJ Deputy Chair Barys Haret­s­ki regard­ing pos­si­ble harass­ment.

The annu­al Forum of Baltic and Per­se­cut­ed Jour­nal­ists opened on Decem­ber 18 at Lithuania’s par­lia­ment vis­i­tors’ cen­ter, focus­ing on region­al secu­ri­ty chal­lenges and cross-bor­der repres­sion, while the Free­dom Hope Award was pre­sent­ed to Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist and for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich.

Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF)’s Dig­i­tal Secu­ri­ty Lab (DSL), work­ing with the East­ern Euro­pean organ­i­sa­tion RESIDENT.NGO, has uncov­ered a pre­vi­ous­ly unknown spy­ware tool used by the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee (KGB) of Belarus to tar­get, among oth­ers, jour­nal­ists and media work­ers. RSF assess­es that this expo­sure is a seri­ous set­back for the KGB’s oper­a­tions, not least because […]

A for­mal cer­e­mo­ny hon­or­ing the recip­i­ents of the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Free­dom of Thought took place on Decem­ber 16 in Stras­bourg dur­ing a ple­nary ses­sion of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. This year’s award was grant­ed to Belaru­sian polit­i­cal pris­on­er and jour­nal­ist Andrzej Poc­zobut and Geor­gian jour­nal­ist Mzia Ama­glo­beli.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists wel­comes the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers but stress­es that many jour­nal­ists and media work­ers remain unjust­ly impris­oned.

Accord­ing to inde­pen­dent media, Mary­na Zolata­va, edi­tor-in-chief of the Belaru­sian news media out­let TUT.BY, is on the list of pris­on­ers released fol­low­ing talks between an Amer­i­can del­e­ga­tion led by U.S. pres­i­den­tial envoy John Coale and offi­cial Min­sk.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) is launch­ing a new project that ana­lyzes the work of state pro­pa­gan­dists for poten­tial crim­i­nal offens­es.