Reporters Without Borders expressed solidarity with imprisoned Belarusian journalists in 12 countries

“They all should be released!” the rep­utable jour­nal­ism orga­ni­za­tion wrote on social media about more than 30 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists in prison.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the orga­ni­za­tion’s head­quar­ters and its offices in mul­ti­ple cities such as Berlin, Brus­sels, Dakar, Gene­va, Lon­don, Rio de Janeiro, Stock­holm, Tunis, Taipei, Vien­na, and Wash­ing­ton D.C., took col­lec­tive pic­tures with por­traits of their Belaru­sian col­leagues to express their sup­port.

Rebec­ca Vin­cent, Direc­tor of Cam­paigns for Reporters With­out Bor­ders, stat­ed that the media crack­down in Belarus shows no indi­ca­tion of end­ing, almost three years since the vio­lent repres­sion cam­paign was launched against the pub­lic after the 2020 elec­tions.

“In col­lab­o­ra­tion with our part­ners from the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Reporters With­out Bor­ders sup­ports inde­pen­dent media in the coun­try and demands the imme­di­ate release of impris­oned jour­nal­ists,” shared Ms Vin­cent.

The orga­ni­za­tion had planned its action to coin­cide with the appeal date in the TUT.BY case. In an envi­ron­ment of high ten­sion for the media, Liud­mi­la Chek­ina and Mary­na Zolata­va have been rec­og­nized as sym­bols of press free­dom.

“The repres­sion of the media that cov­ered the post-elec­tion protests in Belarus con­tin­ues, even though almost three years have passed since their clo­sure,” said BAJ Chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets. “Today, jour­nal­ists are still being impris­oned and sen­tenced to long terms of up to 14–15 years in prison, sim­ply for car­ry­ing out their pro­fes­sion­al duty. Jour­nal­ism, in fact, is not a crime. The crime lies in the repres­sion against jour­nal­ists.”

The Marathon of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with impris­oned Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists began in Vil­nius on May 3 with a joint effort between the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Union of Jour­nal­ists of Lithua­nia.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, orga­ni­za­tions and foun­da­tions from Ger­many, Swe­den, Fin­land, Den­mark, and oth­er coun­tries have also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the action. Indi­vid­u­als, such as the US direc­tor Ernie Bar­barash, also took part.

BAJ calls on jour­nal­ists around the world to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty action! You can print por­traits of impris­oned Belaru­sian media work­ers, take pic­tures with them in out­stand­ing places in your city (not in Belarus) and post them on social media using the hash­tags #СвабодуЖурналістам and #BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist. Don’t for­get to send them to office@baj.media or intercomm@baj.media.

#СвабодуЖурналістам

#BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist