Congratulatory letter of the International Federation of Journalists to the participants of the BAJ Congress

On behalf of the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (IFJ), the world largest organ­i­sa­tion of jour­nal­ists (600.000 jour­nal­ists in 150 coun­tries), I would like to wel­come del­e­gates from our Belaru­sian affil­i­ate, BAJ, to their nation­al meet­ing.

I know that they are work­ing hard to defend jour­nal­ists, to defend press free­dom and the free­dom to inform, one of the pil­lars of any democ­ra­cy.
I want to remind you that there are still far too many jour­nal­ists in prison in Belarus and that it is unac­cept­able for a democ­ra­cy to put jour­nal­ists in prison because of their pro­fes­sion.

On behalf of the IFJ, I demand that the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment imme­di­ate­ly release all jour­nal­ists cur­rent­ly in prison.

Final­ly, as you have seen, the IFJ, as a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Union Con­fed­er­a­tion, is cur­rent­ly involved in a glob­al cam­paign call­ing on our unions to take action against for­eign com­pa­nies that have eco­nom­ic inter­ests in Belarus.

Jour­nal­ism is not a crime. Jour­nal­ism must be defend­ed in all parts of the world.

Once again, good con­gress to all and take care of your­selves.

Antho­ny Bel­langer
IFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary