IPI: Government moves to stamp out remaining independent media

The IPI glob­al net­work today express­es grave con­cern over the lat­est efforts by state author­i­ties in Belarus to stamp out any remain­ing form of inde­pen­dent media left with­in the coun­try and urges the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to respond firm­ly to the lat­est string of attacks on media free­dom and free­dom of expres­sion.

On 4 Novem­ber, the web­sites of two lead­ing civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions doc­u­ment­ing the crack­down — the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) and PEN Belarus — were blocked with­in the coun­try by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion.

On 28 Octo­ber, Ger­man broad­cast­er Deutsche Welle was also blocked along­side Cur­rent Time, Novy Chas. Deputy Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Andrey Kunt­se­vich jus­ti­fied the restric­tions by claim­ing that the blocked out­lets had pub­lished hyper­links to news sto­ries by media web­sites deemed “extrem­ist” by the state.

On Novem­ber 1, jour­nal­ists Iry­na Slau­nika­va and Syarhei Niarouny were found guilty in sep­a­rate cas­es of “spread­ing extrem­ism” by inter­act­ing with and lik­ing the Face­book pages of the inde­pen­dent news out­lets Белсат and Тут бай, both of which were banned and declared “extrem­ist” by Belaru­sian author­i­ties over the sum­mer.

Slau­nika­va was arrest­ed at Min­sk air­port along with her hus­band and sen­tenced by a court in Min­sk to 15 days in jail for “dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist mate­ri­als”. Niarouny, a free­lance jour­nal­ist, was fined 580 Belaru­sian rubles (€205) for lik­ing Face­book posts by Tut.by last year.

On Octo­ber 20, the offices of Novy Chas, one of the few inde­pen­dent news­pa­pers still oper­at­ing with­in Belarus, was raid­ed by police. The edi­tor-in-chief, Aksana Kolb, and deputy edi­tor-in-chief, Syarhey Pul­sha, were detained and inter­ro­gat­ed. Both were released after sign­ing nondis­clo­sure agree­ments.

“We are now at the point where sim­ply inter­act­ing with the Face­book page of an inde­pen­dent media web­site can land a jour­nal­ist in jail in Belarus”, IPI Deputy Direc­tor Scott Grif­f­en said. “The absur­di­ty of all these cas­es is illus­tra­tive of the unprece­dent­ed and relent­less crack­down by the Lukashenko regime on all forms of inde­pen­dent or crit­i­cal media, as well as those orga­ni­za­tions doc­u­ment­ing the con­tin­u­ing abus­es.

“Jour­nal­ists are tar­get­ed with trumped up charges, fined and jailed; oth­ers are dri­ven out of the coun­try through the threat of crim­i­nal sanc­tions; domes­tic media out­lets are liq­ui­dat­ed through arbi­trary “extrem­ist” des­ig­na­tions; inter­na­tion­al pub­li­ca­tions are blocked for link­ing to news sto­ries; civ­il soci­ety groups doc­u­ment­ing the rights abus­es are shut down. It is no exag­ger­a­tion to say the aim of the gov­ern­ment appears to be the com­plete purge of any remain­ing source of impar­tial news or infor­ma­tion.

“It is vital that the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty does not lose sight of the scale and sever­i­ty of the crack­down on media free­doms in Belarus. The invo­ca­tion of the Vien­na Mech­a­nism by 35 states of the Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Co-oper­a­tion (OSCE) is a wel­come step for demand­ing imme­di­ate answers from the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment over its rights abus­es, includ­ing on media free­dom.”

Con­tin­u­ing crack­down

At least 29 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers are cur­rent­ly being held in deten­tion cen­tres and penal colonies, accord­ing to BAJ, which was liq­ui­dat­ed by the Supreme Court in August.

More than 140 dif­fer­ent search­es and raids on the offices of inde­pen­dent media out­lets and homes of indi­vid­ual jour­nal­ists were doc­u­ment­ed between Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber 2021, accord­ing to BAJ, result­ing in the con­fis­ca­tion of jour­nal­is­tic equip­ment and devices.

The web­sites of more than 100 media out­lets and polit­i­cal news plat­forms were tak­en down by the Infor­ma­tion Min­istry in the same peri­od, BAJ report­ed.

Mean­while, two of the country’s old­est human rights orga­ni­za­tions – the Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee and Legal Ini­tia­tive – were dis­solved by the Supreme Court, bring­ing the tal­ly of NGOs with­in Belarus to be banned or in the process of being liq­ui­dat­ed to 275.

This year IPI award­ed its World Press Free­dom Hero award to Yuliya Slut­skaya, the founder and chair­per­son of Press Club Belarus. Slut­skaya and sev­er­al mem­bers of her staff were jailed on trumped-up tax eva­sion charges. She and four col­leagues were released after eight months of pre-tri­al deten­tion in August.