Dialogue For Sake of Dialogue or Outcome? BAJ members spoke about the situation around freedom of speech in Belarus in Brussels

The EP’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights was pre­sent­ed a report on the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus. The report notes, the author­i­ties have back­tracked from large-scale repres­sion, espe­cial­ly in 2016, but the spring 2017 with its large protests against tax on job­less­ness showed how insta­ble the process is. Belarus author­i­ties used pre­ven­tive deten­tion, dis­per­sal of ral­lies, and inten­si­fied the pres­sure on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists.

In par­tic­u­lar, the report doc­u­ment­ed reg­u­lar denials of accred­i­ta­tion to Bel­sat jour­nal­ists, deten­tions and fines to jour­nal­ists for per­form­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties (over 190 cas­es in 2017), block­ing of web­sites ( Charter’97 and Belarus­Par­ti­san).

The report called for unblock­ing the web­sites in Belarus, stop­ping the per­se­cu­tion of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and blog­gers, and ensur­ing unhin­dered access to the media.

After the pre­sen­ta­tion of the report,  the floor was giv­en to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists: BAJ chair Andrei Bas­tunets and its ex-chair Zhan­na Litv­ina .

They focused on the fol­low­ing points: new amend­ments to the media law that are even more restric­tive for mass media, attacks on the free Inter­net space, per­se­cu­tion of Ales Lipai, head of Bela­PAN news agency, the sta­tus of free­lance jour­nal­ists in Belarus and pres­sure on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists.

- The amend­ments to the Law on Media are a per­fect reflec­tion of the gov­ern­men­t’s atti­tude towards free­dom of the press and free­dom of expres­sion. The pro­pos­als of the media com­mu­ni­ty have been vir­tu­al­ly ignored, while  the dis­cus­sion of the bill turned out to be noth­ing more than an imi­ta­tion for «exter­nal users»,  — said Andrei Bas­tunets. He paid spe­cial atten­tion to the per­se­cu­tion of free­lance jour­nal­ists for col­lab­o­rat­ing with for­eign media.

- Jour­nal­ists are fined not for the con­tent of their mate­ri­als, but for the very fact of coop­er­a­tion with for­eign media; the num­ber of fines has increased even com­pared to last year, — said Bas­tunets.

The chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists also focused on the per­se­cu­tion Bela­PAN chief Ales Lipai.. June 12 he was charged with tax eva­sion in par­tic­u­lar­ly large amounts under Arti­cle 243 Part 2 of the Belaru­sian Crim­i­nal Code; on June 14 his apart­ment was searched.

Sim­i­lar­ly, in August 2011 the DFI offi­cers start­ed per­se­cu­tion of the head of the human rights cen­ter «Vias­na» Ales Biali­ats­ki with a search. Ales Biali­ats­ki was charged with tax eva­sion and sen­tenced to 4.5 years of impris­on­ment. Sim­i­lar charge have been brought against the chair­man of the inde­pen­dent trade union REP Henadz Fedyn­ich and its accoun­tant Ihar Kom­lik.

- Pros­e­cu­tion for alleged finan­cial irreg­u­lar­i­ties is a reg­u­lar thing in author­i­tar­i­an coun­tries. Human rights activists, trade unions, and the inde­pen­dent media is next, — said Andrei Bas­tunets.

BAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tives also met with some Euro­pean politi­cians: Bog­dan Zdro­jew­s­ki, Chair of the EP Del­e­ga­tion for­Re­la­tions with Belarus, and Dirk Lorenz, Deputy Head of Divi­sion East­ern­part­ner­ship bilat­er­al, Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice.

- We see a dia­logue for the sake of a dia­logue, not for the out­come in rela­tions between Belarus and the EU. While the author­i­ties are prac­tic­ing smile diplo­ma­cy, the sit­u­a­tion of the media and human rights in Belarus is becom­ing increas­ing­ly fierce, — said Andrei Bas­tunets.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Euro­pean insti­tu­tions say, Belarus is still in the focus of the EU atten­tion, but it’s not easy to keep it — due to the Brex­it, the annex­a­tion of the Crimea and the aggres­sive for­eign pol­i­cy of Rus­sia. The Euro­pean politi­cians pay atten­tion to vio­la­tions of free­dom of expres­sion in Belarus, as well as the prob­lems of free­dom of media and polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in the coun­try.

After meet­ings with the Euro­pean politi­cians, BAJ mem­bers took part in a round table orga­nized by the part­ners from the Inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tions of Jour­nal­ists. The meet­ing focused on the reform of the media law, harass­ment of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and the block­ing of web­sites in Belarus.

June 14 Belarus Cham­ber of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed amend­ments to the law on mass media. This hap­pened in spite of con­cerns voiced by the Belaru­sian and inter­na­tion­al media com­mu­ni­ty stat­ing that the changes would lead to stronger state con­trol over the media space. In April, the amend­ments to the law passed the first read­ing. The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment respond­ed  by a res­o­lu­tion, stat­ing that the amend­ments «threat­en the free­dom of expres­sion.»

In par­tic­u­lar, the amend­ments oblige media to iden­ti­fy all authors of all posts and com­ments. The author­i­ties will also be able to block Inter­net resources with­out a court order, etc.

- State con­trol over the media is unac­cept­able. Belarus deserves a media law that respects the free­dom of the press and ensures the rights of the media and free­lance jour­nal­ists, — Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists rep­re­sen­ta­tives said.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the IFJ and the EFJ called on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to sus­pend the new law on the media, as well as to review the sta­tus of free­lance jour­nal­ists in Belarus and to give them the full right to the pro­fes­sion.