Increased repression against the Belarusian Union of Journalists

In March, Jour­nal­is­ten report­ed that the acclaimed Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists’ union BAJ, which was already declared ille­gal by the regime in 2021, is now clas­si­fied as an “extrem­ist group” by the KGB secu­ri­ty police. The 1,300 mem­bers thus risk ten years in prison through their mem­ber­ship.

Now the author­i­ties’ repres­sion is increas­ing even fur­ther. BAJ’s web­site and social media chan­nels are clas­si­fied as crim­i­nal and sub­scrib­ing to them is a crime. Any­one who stores texts or objects with BAJ’s logo can be held admin­is­tra­tive­ly respon­si­ble.

Accord­ing to a state­ment from BAJ, the logo can be found on a num­ber of doc­u­ments at, among oth­er things, state insti­tu­tions, agen­cies and in archives.

“The new attacks against BAJ are undoubt­ed­ly a con­tin­u­a­tion of the polit­i­cal pres­sure on the orga­ni­za­tion and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists for their work,” BAJ writes in the state­ment.

The orga­ni­za­tion has called on fel­low jour­nal­ists in Belarus to remove any items or doc­u­ments with the logo.

Read more:

“I stay so that those who have been imprisoned or forced to leave have a place to return to”. Motivations of journalists who choose to stay in Belarus

“If one of us is imprisoned, the other one takes the child and leaves the country.” The key from the report of human rights activists on the psychological state of political emigrants

“We stand by the truth, we stand together!” A marathon of solidarity with the imprisoned journalists started in Vilnius