“Human rights are my religion.” Interview with BAJ chair Andrei Bastunets on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the organization

Next year marks a mile­stone for the BAJ, which cel­e­brates its anniver­sary in exile.

“I tru­ly believe in the mis­sion of our orga­ni­za­tion. This is what keeps me going,” says BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets. In the inter­view, he talks about how the orga­ni­za­tion has grown, shares his thoughts on the Belaru­sian media sec­tor, dis­cuss­es jour­nal­is­tic stan­dards, and uncov­ers what media he starts his day with.

Andrei Bas­tunets, Chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. Pho­to cred­it: BAJ

“We have healthy competition and cooperation with the Press Club”

How has the BAJ changed over these 30 years?

I start­ed at BAJ as a part-time lawyer in the late 1990s. As Vladimir Vysotsky’s song goes, “You’ll grow from fore­man to min­is­ter.”

Most of the BAJ staff, includ­ing me, worked part-time back then. Some worked full-time at a radio sta­tion or a news­pa­per. At BAJ, they met and dis­cussed pro­fes­sion­al rights issues.

Recent­ly, I real­ized that no one per­son in the orga­ni­za­tion has remained from those times.

Now BAJ has a web­site and social media – it has become our rou­tine and an impor­tant part of how the orga­ni­za­tion works. But when the site was launched, only two peo­ple ran it.

In the ear­ly 2000s, we estab­lished a rela­tion­ship with the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. They vis­it­ed us to see how BAJ was doing. We began to talk about the pres­sure on the media and the warn­ings they received from the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion. And they replied, “We’re not ask­ing you about free­dom of speech in the coun­try, but about what the orga­ni­za­tion is doing.” That’s when we start­ed think­ing about it and our inter­nal sys­tem. Grad­u­al­ly, the BAJ became more pro­fes­sion­al, both in the way the staff under­stood and per­formed their work and in the fact that the work of the BAJ became their pri­ma­ry job, as it did for me after a while.

BAJ was estab­lished as a human rights orga­ni­za­tion. At one time, BAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tives could par­tic­i­pate in crim­i­nal and admin­is­tra­tive pro­ceed­ings. Then, as time went on, the leg­isla­tive lev­el grad­u­al­ly closed these pos­si­bil­i­ties, but there were still eco­nom­ic cas­es – appeals against Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion warn­ings or defama­tion actions.

That was a pros­per­ous peri­od when two-thirds of all cas­es in which BAJ lawyers par­tic­i­pat­ed end­ed in favor of the media sec­tor.

But at some point in 2002, the Chief Jus­tice said that the courts had learned to resist pub­lic pres­sure. The sit­u­a­tion has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since then. In fact, there isn’t a sin­gle court case where the media has won against the state. In over twen­ty years, this has led to the com­plete col­lapse of the legal sys­tem in Belarus.

What is one thing about BAJ that you are par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of?

For sure, it is our col­leagues and part­ners with whom we work inter­na­tion­al­ly. Of course, I am proud of the awards we’ve received. Among the most impor­tant are those from the World Asso­ci­a­tion of News­pa­pers in 2003 and the 2004 Sakharov Prize of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. Among the lat­ter awards we received, it is the UNESCO Prize. BAJ was rec­og­nized by the East­ern Part­ner­ship Civ­il Soci­ety Forum in 2023 for its out­stand­ing and ded­i­cat­ed work. We real­ize that this is not only a trib­ute to BAJ but, first and fore­most, a trib­ute to the entire field of jour­nal­ism.

One of the most col­or­ful tra­di­tions was hold­ing BAJyn­ki, an equiv­a­lent of the state-spon­sored har­vest fes­ti­val Dazhyn­ki. It was a cul­tur­al event where, on the one hand, we dis­cussed seri­ous prob­lems and, on the oth­er hand, we relaxed and played.

Today, we are excep­tion­al­ly inspired by one action – the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Marathon with Impris­oned Jour­nal­ists. It has been held in over 20 coun­tries on five con­ti­nents and count­ing. We care about our incar­cer­at­ed col­leagues and don’t let them be for­got­ten.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty action with polit­i­cal­ly impris­oned jour­nal­ists. Luk­iškės Prison, Vil­nius, May 3, 2024. Pho­to cred­it: BAJ

Did the BAJ have any laps­es?

I can’t think of any big, fun­da­men­tal mis­takes. Of course, there were argu­ments, con­flicts, and mis­un­der­stand­ings.

There are prob­a­bly some things we could have done bet­ter at. But over­all, we’ve always stayed true to our mis­sion: lis­ten­ing to the voice of the jour­nal­ism com­mu­ni­ty.

For a long time, BAJ was the only pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­is­tic orga­ni­za­tion in Belarus. Then the Press Club appeared. How do you view such com­pe­ti­tion?

The BAJ and the Press Club are now geo­graph­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed: we are based in Vil­nius, and they work in War­saw. This does not, how­ev­er, dimin­ish the lev­el of coop­er­a­tion that exists. The com­pe­ti­tion is healthy. We coor­di­nate our work and joint­ly orga­nize the edu­ca­tion­al course “Jour­nal­is­tic Fac­ul­ty on Sat­ur­days.” Part of the project is car­ried out by BAJ in Vil­nius, anoth­er part is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Press Club in War­saw.

“I’m introverted and have social anxiety”

Have you ever thought about want­i­ng to lead the orga­ni­za­tion?

No, I didn’t. I was asked to accept this posi­tion well in advance of the 2015 BAJ Con­ven­tion. I felt very com­fort­able as deputy chair and direc­tor of the legal divi­sion. Becom­ing chair­man would have been a sig­nif­i­cant job change and increased my work­load. So, I declined the role twice before pre­vi­ous con­ven­tions. But in 2015, refus­ing was no longer an option, and I agreed to run for office.

Next year marks your 10th year lead­ing BAJ. Have you ever thought of resign­ing?

Of course, I have. I ini­tial­ly expect­ed a max­i­mum of two terms.

But in 2021, when the BAJ Con­ven­tion was held, after the first wave of search­es and arrests of the office, we decid­ed that I could resign, thus destroy­ing the struc­ture. We saved the orga­ni­za­tion, which allowed us to recov­er more quick­ly from relo­ca­tion.

I don’t know what will hap­pen next. Last year, the BAJ board decid­ed to hold a con­ven­tion when the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose. We dis­cuss this issue again every year.

As a man­ag­er, how do you main­tain trust in your employ­ees?

Man­ag­ing is, first and fore­most, about com­mu­ni­cat­ing. And I am just a very shut-in per­son, even some­what intro­vert­ed with social anx­i­ety. I am thank­ful to have peo­ple around me to help with com­mu­ni­ca­tion. They don’t need to be moti­vat­ed.

It’s dif­fer­ent with oth­er employ­ees. The next gen­er­a­tion looks at life dif­fer­ent­ly, they have dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties.

Now, the orga­ni­za­tion has resumed a train­ing course for BAJ lead­ers. The aim of this course is to pass on the organization’s val­ues to the youth. We want to show that there is more than just PTSD and not know­ing what lies ahead about this job.

Andrei Bas­tunets, Chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. Vil­nius, 2023. Pho­to: BAJ

The last BAJ Con­ven­tion was in 2021, and it was held in Belarus. The make­up of BAJ’s elect­ed bod­ies and our jour­nal­ism have changed a lot in four years. Do you think the BAJ should be reformed and its board recon­sti­tut­ed?

There is some legal non­sense going on here. We declare that we act accord­ing to the BAJ Statute and the estab­lished doc­u­ments. How­ev­er, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties rec­og­nized these doc­u­ments as invalid, so the orga­ni­za­tion does not exist de jure.

We fol­low all pro­ce­dures out­lined in these doc­u­ments to the extent pos­si­ble. Lack­ing the legal pres­ence in this con­text, it is note­wor­thy that we con­tin­ue to oper­ate by estab­lished rules and reg­u­la­tions.

This is a chal­lenge faced by all civ­il sec­tor orga­ni­za­tions. To date, the jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty has not request­ed reform of our cur­rent oper­a­tional struc­ture. Con­verse­ly, we feel sup­port­ed and remain a rec­og­nized orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing com­mon inter­ests.

“Traditional journalism standards are reconsidered”

What media do you read or watch?

My morn­ings start with the weath­er fore­cast, then the BBC. After that, I browse sev­er­al Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media sites and the BAJ web­site. Although I mon­i­tor the pro­pa­gan­da occa­sion­al­ly, I may not have enough time to read the Belaru­sian state-spon­sored media. Of course, I don’t feel com­pelled to read any of the above.

Some­times, I watch pieces on YouTube. I’m not too fond of for­mats that last an hour and a half; short videos are more inter­est­ing to me.

Recent­ly, BAJ con­duct­ed a poll on its Telegram chan­nel: “Over the past year, has the Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media sec­tor as a whole shown stag­na­tion or devel­op­ment?” The major­i­ty – 58% of respon­dents – replied “stag­na­tion.” What is your opin­ion?

What Belaru­sian media does can be com­pared to run­ning on a tread­mill. You have to move for­ward in order not to go back­ward. Inde­pen­dent media are active­ly devel­op­ing and using new for­mats.

The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion fac­ing the media is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. Media out­lets are work­ing in exile, fac­ing the risk of being labeled as extrem­ist for­ma­tions. Audi­ences are dis­cour­aged from engag­ing with con­tent, includ­ing sub­scrib­ing, shar­ing, and lik­ing.

Tra­di­tion­al jour­nal­ism stan­dards are recon­sid­ered. Some of them are no longer fea­si­ble. For exam­ple, try­ing to get all sides to com­ment, espe­cial­ly when it comes to Belaru­sian gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, or pro­tect­ing the anonymi­ty of experts who com­ment with­out iden­ti­fy­ing them­selves. It is against all stan­dards.

BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets at a ral­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with impris­oned jour­nal­ists. Luk­iškės Prison, Vil­nius, May 3, 2024. Pho­to cred­it: BAJ

We have pro­posed cre­at­ing a new jour­nal­is­tic self-gov­ern­ing body that will not be direct­ly affil­i­at­ed with the BAJ. The media out­lets that wish to par­tic­i­pate in this process will choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It’s an ambi­tious plan. I don’t know if that will hap­pen, but we’re con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty. A great deal will depend on whether or not the opin­ion of this body will be author­i­ta­tive for the jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty.

What gives you the strength to do the work?

I tru­ly believe in our organization’s mis­sion. That’s what keeps me going, as well as the col­leagues I work with and those who are behind bars. Some of them are my friends.

Human rights are my reli­gion; they moti­vate me to do what I do. Jour­nal­ists’ rights are based on free­dom of expres­sion, which is not only a fun­da­men­tal right but also under­pins all oth­ers.

Are there any cel­e­bra­tions planned for BAJ’s 30th anniver­sary?

It would be good to mark this impor­tant date with some event. How­ev­er, our cur­rent plan­ning hori­zon is rel­a­tive­ly short, and the glob­al sit­u­a­tion is not con­ducive to cel­e­bra­tions. Every­thing will depend on events in Belarus and beyond.