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Barys Haret­s­ki, the Deputy Chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), has been placed on an Russ­ian-Belaru­sian inter­state want­ed list, as noticed by Medi­a­zona.

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 […]

After five years of inflict­ing an unprece­dent­ed crack­down on the press, Alexan­der Lukashenko is set to run for a sev­enth pres­i­den­tial term on Sun­day, 26 Jan­u­ary. Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF) has filed a com­plaint with the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) against the Belaru­sian leader for crimes against human­i­ty, as jour­nal­ists con­tin­ue to be over­whelm­ing­ly tar­get­ed […]

Two high-pro­file Belaru­sians, blog­ger Vadz­im Yer­mashuk (known as Vadi­mati) and jour­nal­ist Maria Bulavin­skaya, have faced prop­er­ty seizures as part of ongo­ing repres­sion tar­get­ing dis­si­dents.

Chi­na, Israel, and Myan­mar emerged as the world’s three worst offend­ers in anoth­er record-set­ting year for jour­nal­ists jailed because of their work, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists’ 2024 prison cen­sus has found. Belarus and Rus­sia round­ed out the top five, with CPJ doc­u­ment­ing its sec­ond-high­est num­ber of jour­nal­ists behind bars – a glob­al total of […]

We invite you to a press con­fer­ence by the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus, Nils Muižnieks, which will take place on Jan­u­ary 23, 2025, at 11:00 AM in Vil­nius.

The pro-gov­ern­ment TV chan­nel ONT con­tin­ues its series of broad­casts “about employ­ees of the Amer­i­can media”. After the episodes about Andrei Kuznechyk and Ihar Losik, the pro­pa­gan­dists announced a video fea­tur­ing free­lance jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei. It will be aired on the evening of Jan­u­ary 16.

Blog­ger Ihar Losik appeared for 20 sec­onds in the pro­pa­gan­da TV show “about employ­ees of the Amer­i­can media,” which was broad­cast on ONT on Jan­u­ary 14, 2025. Like jour­nal­ist Andrei Kuznechyk, he was brought to the KGB deten­tion cen­ter specif­i­cal­ly for this “inter­view”. The gov­ern­ment-con­trolled TV sta­tion announced a “con­ver­sa­tion” with Losik for Jan­u­ary 15.

The ONT TV chan­nel announced a new pro­pa­gan­da film “about employ­ees of Amer­i­can media”. The trail­er includ­ed footage of the impris­oned jour­nal­ist Andrei Kuznechyk, not­ed Nasha Niva.

Pho­tographs of Vit­seb­sk jour­nal­ists Ale­na Shabunia, Ali­ak­san­dr Kornyshau, and human rights activist Pavel Lev­in­au have appeared on police posters list­ing indi­vid­u­als want­ed “for com­mit­ting crimes.”

The pri­ma­ry goal of this mon­i­tor­ing effort is to con­firm or refute the hypoth­e­sis that dur­ing the so-called 2025 pres­i­den­tial “elec­tion,” Belaru­sian state-run tele­vi­sion chan­nels are shap­ing their media nar­ra­tive under the influ­ence of the “Russ­ian World” ide­ol­o­gy and inte­gra­tionist, anti-West­ern pro­pa­gan­da.

The Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty made a cor­re­spond­ing state­ment on Decem­ber 28. Siarhei Chabot­s­ka, the own­er and edi­tor of the Hrod­na-based s13.ru media web­site, has been detained for more than two months. 

Dear col­leagues, we sin­cere­ly wish you a Hap­py New Year! May this day serve as a reminder for all of us that even in the dark­est times, a light emerges to guide us toward hope, love, and kind­ness. We wish that, apart from new chal­lenges, 2025 brings you good news, which we all so great­ly […]

In 2024, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) doc­u­ment­ed exten­sive repres­sion with­in the media sec­tor. A notable trend was the rise of “silent repres­sions,” where law enforce­ment pres­sured vic­tims into keep­ing their per­se­cu­tion con­fi­den­tial.

The study shows that in addi­tion to polit­i­cal pres­sure from pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties, media work­ers are also affect­ed by oth­er fac­tors, such as lack of ade­quate access to health care or strug­gles with find­ing sus­tain­able employ­ment.