BAJ stands in solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues

A meet­ing between the lead­er­ship of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) and Sergiy Tomilenko, pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine (NUJU), was held at the BAJ office.

Barys Haret­s­ki, Ali­ak­san­dr Fiadu­ta, Sergiy Tomilenko, and Andrei Bas­tunets at the BAJ office. Pho­to: BAJ

Dur­ing the meet­ing, BAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tives reaf­firmed their full sol­i­dar­i­ty with their Ukrain­ian col­leagues on all issues, includ­ing efforts to counter Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da, pro­tect jour­nal­ists from Russ­ian attacks, sup­port Ukrain­ian media, and call for the release of all Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ists held cap­tive by Rus­sia.

BAJ and NUJU have main­tained a close friend­ship and part­ner­ship for many years. The two jour­nal­ists’ orga­ni­za­tions have reg­u­lar­ly held joint sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and sup­port­ed each oth­er at both the inter­na­tion­al and nation­al lev­els. Like many oth­er jour­nal­ists’ orga­ni­za­tions around the world, BAJ strong­ly con­demns Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ukrain­ian col­leagues. Pho­to: BAJ

“Since the begin­ning of Russia’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine, BAJ has con­tin­ued to sup­port our col­leagues with par­tic­u­lar deter­mi­na­tion. We also thank our col­leagues for their sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belaru­sian media and with Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists behind bars.

For our Belaru­sian col­leagues, sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ukraini­ans today is not sim­ply a mat­ter of words. It means inform­ing our audi­ences every day about events in Ukraine; it means that many of our per­son­al lives are con­nect­ed to Ukraine; and it means Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists work­ing on the front lines of truth along­side their Ukrain­ian col­leagues,” says Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy chair of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, who also holds jour­nal­ist accred­i­ta­tion in Ukraine.

Sergiy Tomilenko and Ali­ak­san­dr Fiadu­ta at the BAJ office. Pho­to: BAJ

It is note­wor­thy that one of the organization’s founders, for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Ali­ak­san­dr Fiadu­ta, joined the meet­ing with Sergiy Tomilenko at the BAJ office. He was released from prison last Decem­ber and hap­pened to be among the group of pris­on­ers who were trans­ferred to Ukraine.