Statement of the Belarusian Association of Journalists on detention of Siarhei Satsuk

BAJ calls for immediate release of Siarhei Satsuk and drop of criminal charges: STATEMENT

On March 25, 2020, at about 16:30, Siarhei Sat­suk, mem­ber of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, jour­nal­ist and edi­tor-in-chief of the online pub­li­ca­tion “Ejed­nevnik” (EJ.BY), was detained. The deten­tion was made by the staff of the Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Depart­ment of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee.

The pre­text for the deten­tion was the mon­ey Sat­suk had alleged­ly received for EJ’s inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism more than a year ago. These funds are incrim­i­nat­ed as a “bribe” under part 2 of arti­cle 430 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus (receiv­ing a bribe, pun­ish­able by impris­on­ment for three to ten years).

Siarhei Sat­suk is known as a jour­nal­ist and edi­tor engaged in inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism. One of his high-pro­file inves­ti­ga­tions was a series of arti­cles in EJ.BY about cor­rup­tion in the health care sys­tem of Belarus. Lat­er, a num­ber of high-rank­ing offi­cials of the Min­istry of Health Care were con­vict­ed of cor­rup­tion.

In August 2019, Siarhei Sat­suk told Bela­PAN that he had received threats because of his jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties. The deten­tion of a well-known jour­nal­ist and sub­se­quent inter­ro­ga­tion of EJ’s staff can lead to intim­i­da­tion of jour­nal­ists and the devel­op­ment of self-cen­sor­ship in the media cov­er­ing social­ly sig­nif­i­cant issues (includ­ing cor­rup­tion and the spread of coro­n­avirus in Belarus).

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists calls on the author­i­ties of the Repub­lic of Belarus:

- to imme­di­ate­ly release Siarhei Sat­suk and drop crim­i­nal charges against him;

- com­ply with the guar­an­tees pro­vid­ed to jour­nal­ists by the Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions of the Repub­lic of Belarus, stop harass­ment, intim­i­da­tion and oth­er aggres­sive actions against jour­nal­ists for per­form­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties.

Adopt­ed by the Board of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

 March 26, 2020