IFEX stands with Belarusian Association of Journalists

IFEX express­es sol­i­dar­i­ty with its mem­ber the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), fol­low­ing today’s polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed deci­sion by the Belarus Supreme Court to liq­ui­date the organ­i­sa­tion. We call on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port all Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists and rights defend­ers whose lives and liveli­hoods are under threat.

IFEX, the glob­al net­work of over 100 organ­i­sa­tions ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing and defend­ing the right to free­dom of expres­sion and infor­ma­tion, is express­ing its sol­i­dar­i­ty with its mem­ber the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), fol­low­ing today’s polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed deci­sion by the Belarus Supreme Court to liq­ui­date the organ­i­sa­tion.

Amidst the Belarus regime’s ongo­ing crack­down on civ­il soci­ety, IFEX also calls on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to pro­vide direct, long-term sup­port to Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists and rights defend­ers, whose lives and liveli­hoods are under threat.

For over 25 years, BAJ and its mem­ber­ship of over 1300 media work­ers has pro­mot­ed free­dom of expres­sion and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism in Belarus, facil­i­tat­ing the exer­cise of civ­il, social, and cul­tur­al rights. BAJ is among dozens of NGOs threat­ened with liq­ui­da­tion by the regime in what pres­i­dent Lukashen­ka has open­ly described as a “purge.”

PEN Belarus, one of the country’s most promi­nent cham­pi­ons of free expres­sion and cul­tur­al free­dom, was also recent­ly dis­solved by Belaru­sian author­i­ties. Oth­er organ­i­sa­tions tar­get­ed include envi­ron­men­tal and her­itage pro­tec­tion groups, the Office for the Rights of Dis­abled Peo­ple, the Nation­al Youth Coun­cil, the Belarus Press Club, and groups that sup­port the elder­ly.

“Today’s polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed rul­ing is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the Lukashen­ka regime’s crack­down on civ­il soci­ety since last year’s rigged elec­tion – a crack­down which aims to silence inde­pen­dent voic­es, con­strict civic space, and deny Belaru­sian cit­i­zens access to reli­able infor­ma­tion about the regime’s human rights vio­la­tions,” stat­ed IFEX Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Annie Game.

Game con­tin­ued: “The entire IFEX net­work stands behind BAJ and all Belarus rights groups and defend­ers whose lives and liveli­hoods are threat­ened by the regime. We con­demn the regime’s actions, call for an imme­di­ate end to the crack­down, and for the release of all jailed pro­test­ers and media work­ers. The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty needs to step up with direct sup­port for all those defend­ing the human rights of the Belaru­sian peo­ple.”

It’s clear the regime is exploit­ing the judiciary’s lack of inde­pen­dence to silence inde­pen­dent voic­es. A recent report by UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus Anaïs Marin high­light­ed that “For almost three decades, Belarus has failed to ensure the inde­pen­dence of its judi­cia­ry.”

Today’s rul­ing comes just weeks after the 1‑year anniver­sary of last year’s rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus, which sparked a wave of pop­u­lar protests call­ing for Lukashenka’s oust­ing and for new elec­tions.

As chron­i­cled each month by IFEX, the regime’s response has been to launch an unprece­dent­ed and bru­tal crack­down, which has seen tens of thou­sands of peace­ful pro­tes­tors detained, over 100 news web­sites blocked, and media out­lets banned. To date, BAJ has record­ed that 497 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers have been arrest­ed, with over 29 still in deten­tion. There have also been 68 cas­es of phys­i­cal vio­lence against jour­nal­ists result­ing in injury.

IFEX’s recent­ly-pub­lished Region­al Spot­light out­lines how the regime’s crack­down has been chal­lenged at every turn by small groups of jour­nal­ists and activists in the dias­po­ra, using dig­i­tal tools and social media to ensure that Belarus-based sup­port­ers of the oppo­si­tion – as well as ordi­nary cit­i­zens – can access uncen­sored infor­ma­tion, that they can organ­ise, and that they can find finan­cial, legal or oth­er kinds of assis­tance if they them­selves are tar­get­ed by the author­i­ties.

Many IFEX mem­bers marked the 1‑year anniver­sary of the fraud­u­lent elec­tion in Belarus by call­ing on inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions to do more to pro­tect the human rights of Belaru­sians:

• The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists joined lit­er­ary and writ­ers’ groups in call­ing on Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments to sup­port the democ­ra­cy move­ment in Belarus, and pro­vide refuge and human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to those flee­ing the coun­try.
• Human Rights Watch pub­lished an arti­cle out­lin­ing the “dis­man­tling” of Belaru­sian civ­il soci­ety, and call­ing on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “pro­vide unwa­ver­ing, long-term sup­port to Belaru­sian groups & activists.”
• In a piece for Index on Cen­sor­ship, Han­nah Yaho­ra­va dis­cuss­es BAJ’s deter­mi­na­tion to car­ry on with its work, regard­less of the out­come of today’s Supreme Court rul­ing.
• In a state­ment respond­ing to the shut­down of its sis­ter organ­i­sa­tion PEN Belarus, PEN America’s Suzanne Nos­sel described the regime as being “so scared of writ­ers, so afraid of those who dare to speak, that it has trained its ener­gies on try­ing to snuff out an orga­ni­za­tion of lit­er­ary lumi­nar­ies that stands for books, sto­ries, and a rev­er­ence for the writ­ten word.”
• PEN Inter­na­tion­al called for all those detained for peace­ful­ly express­ing their views to be released, and for the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port #Belarus media work­ers & cul­tur­al actors, and to ensure per­pe­tra­tors of #human­rights vio­la­tions are held to account.
• Reporters With­out Bor­ders pub­lished a joint report with the World Organ­i­sa­tion against Tor­ture describ­ing the sys­tem of repres­sion that has been imposed with the aim of silenc­ing jour­nal­ists. RSF calls on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty “to make every effort to stop this per­se­cu­tion at Europe’s gates.”

Last week, IFEX joined 13 rights groups in call­ing on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to step up efforts to pres­sure Belarus author­i­ties to change course and respect the human rights of the Belaru­sian peo­ple