EOC defends placing the European Games in Belarus

From the end of this week and nine days ahead, the sec­ond edi­tion of the Euro­pean Games will take place in Min­sk in Belarus to the tones of a strong crit­i­cism from inter­na­tion­al human rights organ­i­sa­tions.

In July, Belaru­sian pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko is cel­e­brat­ing his 25th anniver­sary as head of state. The for­mer USSR Red Army offi­cer came to polit­i­cal pow­er in 1994 after the fall of com­mu­nism in East­ern Europe when the Sovi­et repub­lic was trans­formed into an inde­pen­dent nation.

Alexan­der Lukashenko has been called ‘Europe’s last dic­ta­tor’ and state author­i­ties in Belarus are infa­mous for their repres­sion of polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, which includes a high num­ber of crack­downs on rep­re­sen­ta­tives from inde­pen­dent news media, human rights defend­ers and lawyers who fight for demo­c­ra­t­ic rights.

Like four years ago in Baku, when the first edi­tion of the Euro­pean Games was host­ed by anoth­er auto­crat­ic nation, Azer­bai­jan, human rights advo­cates have repeat­ed­ly asked the own­er of the Games, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Euro­pean Olympic Com­mit­tees, EOC, why the major­i­ty of its asso­ci­at­ed mem­bers chose to place Europe’s biggest Olympic sports event in coun­tries with bad human rights records.

Accord­ing to Human Rights Watch’s 2018 coun­try report on Belarus, civ­il soci­ety activists, lawyers, rights groups, and inde­pen­dent media rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­tin­ued to face gov­ern­ment harass­ment and pres­sure. Belarus author­i­ties are said to have pros­e­cut­ed dozens of jour­nal­ist on a vari­ety of arbi­trary grounds and adopt­ed new restric­tions on inter­net free­dom.

Belarus is also the only Euro­pean coun­try to use the death penal­ty, which accord­ing to Human Rights Watch is car­ried out by a shot to the head and with­out any infor­ma­tion to fam­i­lies of either the exe­cu­tion date or the bur­ial place.

EOC media hot­line in Rome   
As more than 4,000 ath­letes are now on their way to Belarus and Alexan­der Lukashenko is plan­ning the cel­e­bra­tion of his 25-year-long regime, Play the Game has asked the vice pres­i­dent of the EOC, Niels Nygaard, who is also the pres­i­dent of Denmark’s Olympic Com­mit­tee, why the EOC has cho­sen Min­sk.

Nygaard explains that three years ago, when sev­er­al cities in the Nether­lands with­drew their col­lec­tive can­di­da­ture for the Euro­pean Games for eco­nom­ic rea­sons, Min­sk showed an inter­est in tak­ing over the Games on short notice. At first, Den­mark and Nor­way protest­ed because there were still eco­nom­ic and sports-relat­ed ques­tions to be answered from Min­sk.

“But a large major­i­ty of the oth­er coun­tries in the EOC did not want to wait for fur­ther exam­i­na­tions of the bid and accept­ed Min­sk as the host coun­try,” the EOC vice pres­i­dent says.

In rela­tion to the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, Nygaard notes that the coun­try has signed a host­ing con­tract with the EOC sim­i­lar to the con­tracts that Olympic host coun­tries are oblig­ed to sign with the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee, IOC:

“The author­i­ties have promised there will be no harass­ment of jour­nal­ists dur­ing the Games. And if jour­nal­ists have com­plaints, we encour­age them to call the EOC on a phone num­ber at our head office in Rome and we will try to help them solve their prob­lems.”

Nygaard also say that by sign­ing the EOC host con­tract, Belaru­sian author­i­ties have promised not to harass any­one for sex­u­al, reli­gious or polit­i­cal rea­sons dur­ing the Games, and to secure rights for con­struc­tion work­ers at the sport­ing venues. But accord­ing to the EOC vice pres­i­dent, the polit­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties of the Olympic asso­ci­a­tion stop at the sta­di­um gate:

“Unless it has some­thing to do direct­ly with the Games, we do not inter­fere in a host country’s polit­i­cal affairs.”

‘Olympic val­ues are not polit­i­cal demands’
Last month, both Human Rights Watch and the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists used the inter­na­tion­al World Press Free­dom Day on 3 May to put focus on the Euro­pean Games in Belarus.

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties have a long and sor­ry his­to­ry of con­tempt for media free­dom, so it’s like­ly they may harass inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists in the lead-up and dur­ing the Euro­pean Games,” said Rachel Den­ber, deputy direc­tor of the Europe and Cen­tral Asia Divi­sion at Human Rights Watch, and called for the EOC to address this prob­lem.

When Play the Game informs Rachel Den­ber of the deci­sion to open a Euro­pean Games media hot­line at the EOC office in Rome, she is not impressed:

“Rome? That’s ridicu­lous. How can they help jour­nal­ists in Belarus from an office in Italy? The hot­line must be in Belarus and oper­at­ed by peo­ple who know which author­i­ties to con­tact in Min­sk. Rome is not good enough.”

She is also crit­i­cal of the EOC’s reluc­tance to inter­fere in host coun­tries polit­i­cal affairs:

“Human rights are not polit­i­cal demands. Accord­ing to the Olympic Char­ter they are Olympic val­ues. Olympic sports organ­i­sa­tions need to have tools to pre­vent peo­ple from being exploit­ed. These human rights issues are direct­ly relat­ed to host­ing the Games,” Rachel Den­ber argues.

‘Smart’ media harass­ment
Sta­tis­tics from the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists show a total num­ber of 26 police search­es of jour­nal­ist and blog­gers’ homes and media offices in Belarus last year. In Feb­ru­ary 2018, a court also sen­tenced three blog­gers to five years in prison for alleged­ly hav­ing ‘ques­tioned Belarus’ sov­er­eign­ty’ and ‘insult­ed the Belarus nation’. The blog­gers spent 14 months in pre-tri­al cus­tody before their sen­tences were sus­pend­ed.

Accord­ing to Gul­noza Said, who is the pro­gramme coor­di­na­tor for Europe and Cen­tral Asia at the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists, no Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are in prison at the moment because the author­i­ties are using a new tac­tic designed to harass inde­pen­dent media rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

“They now do it in a ‘smarter’ way. They arrest jour­nal­ists for a short peri­od and give them a fine. In doing so, they obvi­ous­ly think it makes Belarus look a lit­tle bit bet­ter than coun­tries, where crit­i­cal jour­nal­ists are send to prison.”

Like Rachel Den­ber, she calls on the EOC to put more pres­sure on the author­i­ties in Min­sk in order to improve media rights in Belarus:  

“Politi­cians in auto­crat­ic coun­tries love host­ing sports event. They use the Games to show­case them­selves. And they are doing it with­out the risk of being held account­able for spend­ing pub­lic mon­ey on the Games,” Said says.

“I think, the author­i­ties in Belarus will give the many for­eign reporters a very warm wel­come at the Euro­pean Games, but I fear they will con­tin­ue to harass the local jour­nal­ists after the Games.”

Exces­sive state con­trol
Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the vast major­i­ty of inde­pen­dent media in Belarus are focused on enter­tain­ment, but there are about 20 social and polit­i­cal news media that are not run by the state.

“Many of them do not have the offi­cial sta­tus of media, because they are not reg­is­tered at the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, but they are quite pop­u­lar,” says Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

To him, inde­pen­dent news media in Belarus are chal­lenged in many dif­fer­ent ways: Exces­sive state con­trol of the media sec­tor makes it dif­fi­cult to reg­is­ter a new pub­li­ca­tion focus­ing on social or polit­i­cal issues in the coun­try. The author­i­ties have a pos­si­bil­i­ty to block web­sites for a num­ber of rea­sons. The adver­tis­ing mar­ket is lim­it­ed, and there is a reluc­tance to adver­tise in non-state socio-polit­i­cal media.

“Jour­nal­ists from non-state media have prob­lems with access to infor­ma­tion both in pub­lic and pri­vate organ­i­sa­tions and insti­tu­tions. They are under admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal pres­sure and risk deten­tions, fines, arrests, and crim­i­nal cas­es,” Haret­s­ki says.

In his view, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties are afraid of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists.

“Often the author­i­ties pre­fer to gloss over the acute social, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal issues, while non-state media on the con­trary pay atten­tion to them: cor­rup­tion, acts of vio­lence and sui­cides in the Belaru­sian army, human rights, issues of social ser­vices and law enforce­ment agen­cies, and more.”

One way of attack­ing free­dom of expres­sion in Belarus is to pros­e­cute jour­nal­ists who coop­er­ate with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion. Last year, 118 free­lance jour­nal­ists had to pay fines of amounts between 230 dol­lars and 575 dol­lars. So far this year, 36 jour­nal­ists have been fined.

As many inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists are still denied access to infor­ma­tion and offi­cial accred­i­ta­tion, Haret­s­ki does not see any signs of improve­ment.

“The rela­tion­ship remains cold. The Euro­pean Games will hard­ly improve the sit­u­a­tion.”

A spe­cial pres­i­den­tial decree
In order to help for­eign media dur­ing the Euro­pean Games, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has pre­pared a memo for for­eign jour­nal­ists who trav­el to Min­sk.

“We describe the main legal aspects and safe­ty mea­sures, which for­eign jour­nal­ists should know of. And we also offer con­tacts at the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists in case for­eign reporters get into trou­ble,” Haret­s­ki says.

Even though inter­na­tion­al media is expect­ed to turn their atten­tion to both the Euro­pean Games, which are held from 21–30 June, and the 25th anniver­sary of Alexan­der Lukashenko’s Belaru­sian regime in July, Haret­s­ki does not expect that the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion will arrange mas­sive protests against the regime, as a spe­cial pres­i­den­tial decree has approved addi­tion­al mea­sures dur­ing the Games:

“The doc­u­ment gives even more encour­age­ment to the secu­ri­ty forces to pre­vent any unau­tho­rised street protests, and it is impos­si­ble to receive an offi­cial per­mis­sion to hold a protest in the cen­tre of Min­sk,” he says.

Fur­ther­more, civ­il and polit­i­cal activists have neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences from the World Hock­ey Cham­pi­onship in 2014. Accord­ing to Haret­s­ki, more than 40 civic and polit­i­cal activists were detained as a pre­ven­tive mea­sure and arrest­ed for 10 to 15 days – before they had even begun to car­ry out such activ­i­ties.

“But we can­not com­plete­ly elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such protests. In that case, jour­nal­ists need to be as care­ful as pos­si­ble, as the police very often arrest media rep­re­sen­ta­tives along with pro­test­ers,” the vice chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists warns.

EOC: ‘The US also has the death penal­ty’
In lis­ten­ing to the cri­tique, Niels Nygaard points out that the Olympic pol­i­cy of not inter­fer­ing in host coun­tries’ polit­i­cal affairs might change in the future.

“Inside the Olympic Move­ment we have now begun to dis­cuss whether we should imple­ment human rights demands when we award Olympic sports events to a coun­try. Per­son­al­ly, I think it is a very good thing that we have these dis­cus­sions. But I do not want us to end up with just a hand­ful of pos­si­ble host coun­tries.”

At a time when human rights are begin­ning to play a more cen­tral role in both the IOC and FIFA’s selec­tion of host coun­tries for big sports events, Nygaard also points to some of the chal­lenges:

“Accord­ing to the UN, more than half of the coun­tries in the World have prob­lems with human rights. As an exam­ple of the chal­lenges we face, it is worth not­ing that a coun­try like the US also has the death penal­ty.”

Last year, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al and the Nation­al Olympic Com­mit­tee in Niels Nygaard’s home coun­try, Den­mark, signed a deal which says that Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al shall inform the com­mit­tee of the human rights sit­u­a­tion in any coun­try host­ing inter­na­tion­al sports events.

In the case of Belarus, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al is warn­ing the Dan­ish sports lead­ers and ath­letes about the country’s death penal­ty, restrict­ed free­dom of assem­bly, harass­ment of non-state media rep­re­sen­ta­tives and vio­lent attacks on LGBTI-per­sons.

“LGBTI-per­sons in Belarus are often attacked and beat­en up. Both on the street and in the legal sys­tem they feel dis­crim­i­nat­ed. Belarus has a law which is sim­i­lar to the one in Rus­sia, where so called ‘pro­pa­gan­da for non-tra­di­tion­al sex­u­al rela­tions’ is for­bid­den,” the inter­na­tion­al human rights organ­i­sa­tion states in its advice.

The Amnesty report on Belarus does not upset Niels Nygaard, though:

“Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has not advised us not to go to Min­sk. But I do hope that more coun­tries, where these issues are not present, will be inter­est­ed in host­ing the Games in the future.”

The next Euro­pean Games in 2023 is going to Krakow and the sur­round­ing Małopol­s­ka region. At the dead­line a few weeks ago, the Pol­ish city was the only can­di­date. The offi­cial elec­tion will take place at an extra­or­di­nary EOC Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Min­sk on 22 June.