Joint call to make press freedom a cornerstone of all demands towards Belarus

Women wear­ing black cloth­ing and tape over their mouths demon­strate against the con­vic­tion of a jour­nal­ist and a doc­tor over the dis­clo­sure of a pro­test­er’s med­ical records, Min­sk, Belarus, 2 March 2021, -/AFP via Get­ty Images

The hijack­ing is yet anoth­er step in a mas­sive attack on press free­dom and should not be treat­ed as a sep­a­rate inci­dent. Since August 2020, there have been more than 550 instances of jour­nal­ists being arbi­trar­i­ly detained and they have spent more than 3,000 days in jail col­lec­tive­ly. 

In the midst of the fall­out from the hijack­ing of the Ryanair flight, on 24 May Lukashen­ka simul­ta­ne­ous­ly signed new amend­ments to the Mass Media Law that enable fur­ther repres­sion of inde­pen­dent media, and all but out­law their activ­i­ties. When the amend­ments come into effect, the Infor­ma­tion Min­istry will be autho­rized to shut down media out­lets with­out a court order. 

Respond­ing to the events out­lined above requires a strong com­mit­ment to defend the space for media free­dom in Belarus. There­fore, in addi­tion to urg­ing the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of all detained or impris­oned jour­nal­ists and media actors, we urge the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to make respect for press free­dom con­di­tion­al in all its demands towards Lukashenka’s admin­is­tra­tion. We call on all states to ensure that busi­ness does not con­tin­ue as usu­al and to exert their influ­ence to cut the eco­nom­ic life­line of the regime’s author­i­tar­i­an lead­er­ship.
 

Insulate Belarusian people from harmful effects

At the same time, we also stress that com­pre­hen­sive eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on any coun­try can cause enor­mous hard­ship to civil­ians who are often not respon­si­ble for the actions their gov­ern­ment takes. The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has begun impos­ing sanc­tions on Belarus over its out­ra­geous act. It must ensure that any addi­tion­al sanc­tions it con­sid­ers impos­ing are tar­get­ed specif­i­cal­ly on Belaru­sian offi­cials and their finan­cial inter­ests, or pri­vate enti­ties that active­ly col­lab­o­rate with regime offi­cials and their repres­sive mea­sures, while insu­lat­ing Belaru­sian peo­ple from any harm­ful effects. For­eign busi­ness­es enter­ing into rela­tion­ships with Belaru­sian cor­po­ra­tions should under­take enhanced due dili­gence to ensure that they are not sup­port­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials or their actions – in par­tic­u­lar, restric­tions on indi­vid­ual free­doms, includ­ing the right to free expres­sion.
 

Accountability for violations and support for independent media

We fur­ther call for account­abil­i­ty for all those respon­si­ble for vio­la­tions of the rights of jour­nal­ists, activists, cul­tur­al fig­ures and oth­ers sub­ject­ed to exces­sive force, reprisals, tor­ture and ill-treat­ment. Final­ly, we also urge increased sup­port to inde­pen­dent media and threat­ened jour­nal­ists in Belarus, includ­ing through the stream­lin­ing of human­i­tar­i­an and relo­ca­tion requests, so that they can con­tin­ue their work safe­ly and effec­tive­ly. Peo­ple need access to reli­able infor­ma­tion, espe­cial­ly dur­ing sit­u­a­tions of cri­sis.
 

Signed by:
Free Press Unlim­it­ed (FPU)
IFEX
ARTICLE 19
Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ)
Index on Cen­sor­ship
Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF)
South East Europe Media Organ­i­sa­tion (SEEMO)
PEN Amer­i­ca
Inter­na­tion­al Media Sup­port (IMS)