Five years of lawlessness: How Belarus’s media was silenced — and fought back

Inde­pen­dent media can be destroyed, jour­nal­ists can be impris­oned — but they can­not be forced into silence. The start­ing point of the newest Belaru­sian his­to­ry was August 9, 2020 — the day of vot­ing in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that nev­er tru­ly hap­pened. That day marked the begin­ning of a total purge of Belarus’s demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety.

Over the past five years, the regime has “nor­mal­ized” Belaru­sians: oppo­nents of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka are in prison, the third sec­tor has been destroyed, and inde­pen­dent lawyers have been elim­i­nat­ed as a pro­fes­sion.

The Belaru­sian media land­scape has also com­plete­ly changed. Inde­pen­dent out­lets have been dri­ven out of the coun­try, replaced by Russ­ian and Belaru­sian state pro­pa­gan­da.

In terms of press free­dom, Belarus ranks 159th out of 161 coun­tries, accord­ing to the human rights group Arti­cle 19. In the 2025 World Press Free­dom Index, Reporters With­out Bor­ders ranked Belarus 166th out of 180 coun­tries.

What happened to independent media after 2020

Almost all nation­al socio-polit­i­cal pub­li­ca­tions left Belarus due to repres­sion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. More than 30 out­lets now oper­ate from abroad. Despite this, the vast major­i­ty of “exiled” media have sur­vived and con­tin­ue to work.

But there have been loss­es. Some out­lets that played a major role in nation­al and region­al jour­nal­ism dis­ap­peared (at least tem­porar­i­ly) from the media map: Nar­o­d­naya Volya, Belarus­ki Par­ti­zan, Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta from Mal­adzech­na, Borisovskie Novosti, Intex-press from Baranavichy, Info-Kuri­er from Slut­sk, Ranak from Svet­la­horsk, Brest­s­ki Kuri­er, and sev­er­al oth­ers.

Nar­o­d­naya Volya

The authorities fear independent media even in exile

That is why the Belaru­sian regime wide­ly prac­tices label­ing inde­pen­dent media as “extrem­ist con­tent” and “extrem­ist for­ma­tions.” This allows secu­ri­ty forces to pros­e­cute peo­ple, both admin­is­tra­tive­ly and crim­i­nal­ly, for read­ing the “wrong” out­lets.

Accord­ing to Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Marat Markau, since 2020 the author­i­ties have restrict­ed 18,000 infor­ma­tion resources, almost 7,000 of which have been declared “extrem­ist.” Last year alone, 3,150 resources received this label.

“On the infor­ma­tion front, state media must have all types of weapons and tools,” the min­is­ter said. And if offi­cial media lose this war, “we will have to enter a hot phase, a real war.” How easy it is to dis­guise the fear of los­ing pow­er as war talk!

Hard­ly a day pass­es with­out new infor­ma­tion resources being labeled “extrem­ist.” For exam­ple, on July 30 the KGB declared the coali­tion Green Net­work an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion.” It includes the projects Belarus Bee­hive, Green Por­tal, and Eco­home.

Not only nation­al media are labeled extrem­ist — for­eign out­lets are tar­get­ed too, such as the Lithuan­ian por­tal DELFI or the Pol­ish web­site Kresy24.pl.

Repression against journalists

The start of protests in August 2020 opened a “hunt­ing sea­son” on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists. The Belaru­sian regime fol­lows the prin­ci­ple: no jour­nal­ist — no pic­tures or infor­ma­tion — and then TV can safe­ly broad­cast “sta­bil­i­ty.”

On August 10 in Min­sk, a secu­ri­ty offi­cer delib­er­ate­ly shot Nasha Niva pho­to­jour­nal­ist Natal­lia Lub­neuskaya. She was wear­ing a blue PRESS vest, impos­si­ble to miss from ten meters away. For­tu­nate­ly, the bul­let was rub­ber.

Col­leagues help wound­ed Natal­lia Lub­neuskaya leave the protest site. Pho­to: Uladz Hry­dzin

Col­leagues help wound­ed Natal­lia Lub­neuskaya leave the protest site. Pho­to: Uladz Hry­dzin

More than 500 media work­ers have faced repres­sion orga­nized by the Belaru­sian regime. At this very moment, 38 jour­nal­ists are behind bars on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges. The BAJ counter tracks the num­ber of impris­oned jour­nal­ists and their sen­tences.

On July 25, Brest free­lance jour­nal­ist Danil Palian­s­ki was charged with “trea­son” and sen­tenced to 10 years in prison.

Since 2020, 31 jour­nal­ists have been released from cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties and remand pris­ons fol­low­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. One of the most recent was for­mer RFE/RL Belarus jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei, freed as part of Belarus‑U.S. nego­ti­a­tions and imme­di­ate­ly deport­ed to Lithua­nia.

Accord­ing to the Coun­cil of Europe’s Plat­form for the Pro­tec­tion of Jour­nal­ism and Safe­ty of Jour­nal­ists, in 2024 Belarus led Europe in the num­ber of jailed jour­nal­ists. A total of 159 jour­nal­ists were in cus­tody, with the largest share — 44 — in Belarus, fol­lowed by 30 in Azer­bai­jan, 29 in Rus­sia, 28 in Russ­ian-occu­pied areas of Ukraine, 27 in Turkey, and 1 in Geor­gia.

Mass deten­tion of jour­nal­ists dur­ing the 2020 protests in Min­sk. Pho­to: TUT.BY

Mass deten­tion of jour­nal­ists dur­ing the 2020 protests in Min­sk. Pho­to: TUT.BY

Is everything lost, or we won’t give the authorities the satisfaction?

The destruc­tion, crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, and exile of media pro­voked a counter-reac­tion — dozens of new projects appeared in the Belaru­sian media space. These include new social media-based out­lets as well as tra­di­tion­al media. Notable exam­ples include the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter, Buro Media, Pozirk, Plan B, Soj­ka, MOST, Palat­no, the Belaru­sians Can project, Ali­ak­san­dra Khanevich’s YouTube chan­nel, Min­is­ter­st­va Sepul­tu­ry, Ziol­ki Show, Jana/Joj, and Zahlanie Sontsa. This is far from a com­plete list.

Tik­Tok chan­nels with mil­lions of fol­low­ers have emerged. Telegram chan­nels have sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased the speed of infor­ma­tion deliv­ery.

Inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism based on open data, inter­na­tion­al sources, and Cyber­Par­ti­sans leaks has reached the inter­na­tion­al lev­el — some­thing unimag­in­able before 2020.

Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have become more inte­grat­ed into the inter­na­tion­al agen­da, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pol­ish, Lithuan­ian, Ukrain­ian, and West­ern media, which helps keep the Belarus issue vis­i­ble world­wide. Sup­port for Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists echoes from Aus­tralia to Cana­da.

BAJ’s spe­cial project With­out us you wouldn’t know… shows which facts, events, and prob­lems in Belarus would have gone unseen with­out inde­pen­dent media.

Belarus’s independent media: A one-of-a-kind example in Europe

Inside the coun­try, how­ev­er, con­di­tions are the worst in the his­to­ry of inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism. Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da is com­pet­ing for the audi­ence of blocked and exiled media, while the tone of Belaru­sian state pro­pa­gan­da has become more aggres­sive. Author­i­ties open­ly pro­mote projects that mim­ic inde­pen­dent out­lets but push the state’s agen­da. This pol­i­cy most affects the younger gen­er­a­tion, which nev­er wit­nessed 2020 first­hand.

“Indeed, the work­ing con­di­tions for inde­pen­dent media have rad­i­cal­ly changed since 2020,” says BAJ deputy chair Barys Haret­s­ki. “The num­ber of infor­ma­tion sources has sig­nif­i­cant­ly decreased. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have been deprived of the right to work on the ground. But even in such extreme con­di­tions, inde­pen­dent media main­tain a pres­ence through open sources, inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, and offi­cials’ com­ments. With­out a doubt, the exam­ple of Belarus’s inde­pen­dent media sec­tor is unique in Europe.

The past five years have shown: media can be destroyed finan­cial­ly and legal­ly, dri­ven into exile, labeled ‘extrem­ist.’ But no one has yet been born who can make the inde­pen­dent press be silent.”