EFJ: Statement of solidarity with prosecuted Belarusian journalists

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the work­ing con­di­tions for jour­nal­ists in Belarus can­not be regard­ed as free at all nowa­days. Since 2015, the Belaru­sian offi­cial author­i­ties have start­ed a repres­sion cam­paign against free­lance jour­nal­ists, who coop­er­ate with for­eign media.

As a result of this cam­paign, the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were fined 69 times for the alleged ille­gal pro­duc­tion of mass media prod­ucts in 2017. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), which is a local mem­ber of EFJ, has always con­sid­ered the pros­e­cu­tion to be unlaw­ful.

The wave of gov­ern­ment-led oppres­sion in rela­tion to free­lance reporters in Belarus con­tin­ued in 2018. In par­tic­u­lar, huge fines were imposed on our col­leagues 32 times since the year start. It was not a rare case that the sums of penal­ties exceed­ed the aver­age salary rate in the coun­try.

Con­se­quent­ly, the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ), the largest organ­i­sa­tion of jour­nal­ists in Europe, rep­re­sent­ing over 320,000 jour­nal­ists in 70 jour­nal­ists’ organ­i­sa­tions across 44 coun­tries, would like to express again its sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Belaru­sian col­leagues.

We urge the Belaru­sian gov­ern­men­tal author­i­ties to stop imme­di­ate­ly the unprece­dent­ed wave of per­se­cu­tion against free­lance jour­nal­ists and pro­vide our col­leagues with legal guar­an­tees for their pro­fes­sion­al work.

More­over, we address to jour­nal­ist unions and orga­ni­za­tions across Europe with a request to sup­port our appeal in sup­port of col­leagues in Belarus and request the gov­ern­ments of cor­re­spond­ing coun­tries to raise the issue of per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists in Belarus dur­ing inter­na­tion­al meet­ings and bilat­er­al talks.

Fines to Journalists for Violating Article 22.9 of the Administrative Code