Harlem Désir: There Are Brave Journalists Ready to Fight for the Diversity of Opinions in Belarus

Dur­ing the meet­ing, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty spoke about the main prob­lems in the area of ​​media free­dom in Belarus: over­reg­u­la­tion of the infor­ma­tion sphere by the gov­ern­ment, unequal eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, dif­fi­cul­ties with reg­is­tra­tion of new media, extra­ju­di­cial block­ing of Inter­net resources, fre­quent deten­tions of jour­nal­ists, admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty for coop­er­a­tion with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion and recent crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings of the «BELTA case”.

The meet­ing par­tic­i­pants made a spe­cial focus on access to infor­ma­tion by jour­nal­ists of non-state media. The jour­nal­ists gave detailed infor­ma­tion to Harlem Désir about ground­less denials of accred­i­ta­tion by the pub­lic author­i­ties and the impos­si­bil­i­ty to appeal such denials.

BAJ Chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets and BAJ lawyer Aleh Aheyeu informed the OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive about the prac­tice of using the law against extrem­ism, per­se­cu­tion of activists of the anar­chist move­ment for posts in social media, and pos­si­ble fur­ther changes to make the legal frame­work even more restric­tive.

Sum­ming up, Harlem Désir point­ed out a num­ber of issues on the agen­da of the OSCE rep­re­sen­ta­tive to be dis­cussed over the com­ing days with the Belaru­sian author­i­ties.

— First of all, it is denial of accred­i­ta­tion. OSCE believes, there should be no manda­to­ry accred­i­ta­tion for jour­nal­ists. If there is such a pro­ce­dure, it must be open and trans­par­ent, with­out ground­less denials. This includes the prob­lem of access to infor­ma­tion.

Sec­ond­ly, we are con­cerned with issues relat­ed to the new law on mass media and reg­is­tra­tion of media out­lets. We are also con­cerned about the fight against extrem­ism and extrem­ist prod­ucts which may result in oppres­sion of the media. It is impor­tant to keep all pro­ce­dures trans­par­ent and pro­vide a pos­si­bil­i­ty to appeal against any deci­sion.

We are proud of the fact that there are brave jour­nal­ists in Belarus who are ready to fight for the diver­si­ty of opin­ions, — said Harlem Désir dur­ing the meet­ing.

Tomor­row, the OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media will meet with For­eign Min­is­ter Uladz­imir Makei, Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Alexan­der Kar­liuke­vich, Chair­man of the par­lia­men­tary Stand­ing Com­mis­sion on Human Rights, Eth­nic Rela­tions and Mass Media Andrei Nau­movich and vis­it some media out­lets.

Harlem Désir’s vis­it to Min­sk will last until March 20.

The OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media is close­ly fol­low­ing the sit­u­a­tion of the media in Belarus. He expressed his posi­tion after the announce­ment of the crim­i­nal sen­tence to Mary­na Zolata­va, mass arrests of jour­nal­ists in the BelTA case, and search­es in the apart­ments of Hrod­na free­lancers.