IMS calls international community take robust action stop abuses against journalists, media in Belarus

Today the Belaru­sian regime has launched an unprece­dent­ed attack on TUT.BY, an inde­pen­dent media out­let with 20 mil­lion unique dai­ly vis­i­tors, that has exten­sive­ly cov­ered the demon­stra­tions and the vio­lent crack­down by the author­i­ties. The agents of the Belaru­sian Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Depart­ment (DFR) have searched TUT.by offices in Min­sk as well as the region­al offices Brest, Vit­seb­sk and Hrod­na. The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus has blocked tut.by web­site, anoth­er move in the attempt to turn Belarus into an infor­ma­tion vac­u­um. Chief edi­tor Mari­na Zolo­to­va was also one of the tar­gets of the raid. 

“The unspeak­able attack against TUT.BY fol­lows the well-doc­u­ment­ed pat­tern of harass­ment against jour­nal­ists and media in Belarus; this is yet anoth­er fla­grant show­ing of this regime’s unscrupu­lous will to silence oppo­si­tion­al voic­es. By shut­ting down TUT.BY and block­ing access to the cru­cial infor­ma­tion they deliv­er to the cit­i­zens, the regime in Belarus is cut­ting the life-blood of the Belaru­sian peo­ple. There is a clear goal to turn the coun­try into an infor­ma­tion vac­u­um.” says Gul­nara Akhun­do­va, IMS Head of Depart­ment for Glob­al Response.

TUT.BY has been attacked by the gov­ern­ment since the wide­ly dis­put­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in August 2020. The gov­ern­ment stripped Tut.By of its offi­cial media sta­tus in autumn 2020 as author­i­ties cracked down on one of the largest street protests to erupt against long­time Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko. On 19 Novem­ber 2020, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s office opened a crim­i­nal case against a TUT.BY jour­nal­ist, Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, and Art­siom Sorokin, a doc­tor, who spoke up about Raman Ban­daren­ka, a protest activist beat­en to death in Novem­ber 2020 in Min­sk, alleged­ly by plain­clothes police offi­cers. Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich was sen­tenced to 6 months in prison. Tut.by reporter Lyubov Kasper­ovich was 14 May sen­tenced to 15 days for cov­er­ing a tri­al of oppo­si­tion sup­port­ers. 

The DFR launched a crim­i­nal case against TUT.BYon the grounds of a crime under Part 2 of Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (eva­sion of tax­es and fees on an espe­cial­ly large scale). Jour­nal­ist Ele­na Tolka­che­va has been tak­en to DFR for inter­ro­ga­tion, tut.by says on their Twit­ter page. The offi­cial email has been blocked, also accord­ing to TUT.BY’s Twit­ter page. 

TUT.BY is only one of many inde­pen­dent media and human rights organ­i­sa­tions being tar­gets of the state orches­trat­ed attacks. In Feb­ru­ary this year, at least 25 human rights defend­ers were tar­get­ed in a brazen attack on free­dom of expres­sion. IMS called for the imme­di­ate release of the jour­nal­ists and human rights defend­ers detained in Min­sk, Mogilev, Viteb­sk, Homel, Mozyr, Brest and Rechyts in Belarus.

IMS con­demns in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the Belaru­sian regime actions against TUT.BY and inde­pen­dent media and civ­il soci­ety in Belarus. IMS calls on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to react swift­ly and employ all avail­able inter­na­tion­al account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms to put an end to the fran­tic, mount­ing crack­down against media and crit­i­cal voic­es in Belarus. 16 jour­nal­ists are behind bars at the moment in Belarus, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ).