The journalists of Belarus in exile

– I came here to War­saw only with a small back­pack. I didn’t even bring my com­put­er, my cam­era or my hard dri­ves because it was like a sym­bol of my return, says jour­nal­ist Tanya Kapitono­va. 

What will the con­se­quences be when jour­nal­ists are forced to leave their coun­try and – in the worst case – their pro­fes­sion?

Reporters With­out Bor­ders Sweden’s report has been pro­duced in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the inde­pen­dent journalists’s asso­ci­a­tion Belaru­sian asso­ci­a­tion of jour­nal­ists (BAJ). The report describes the sit­u­a­tion of the exile jour­nal­ists, who con­tin­ue to do their work and make sure that the voic­es from and about Belarus will not be silenced.

PROLOGUE

While bombs are falling on Ukraine and jour­nal­ists are shot, kid­napped, tor­tured and flee­ing the bru­tal repres­sion in neigh­bor­ing Rus­sia and Belarus con­tin­ues – which along with Turkey – are two of Europe’s most prob­lem­at­ic coun­tries for jour­nal­ists to work in. 

Reporters With­out Bor­ders has been able to mobi­lize quick­ly in sup­port of our Ukrain­ian col­leagues. Through dona­tions from mem­bers, the pub­lic and large donors, we have bought pro­tec­tive equip­ment, first aid kits and satel­lite phones, opened a press cen­ter in the city of Lviv and estab­lished con­tacts to assist jour­nal­ists forced to flee.

The sup­port for vul­ner­a­ble jour­nal­ists in Belarus and Rus­sia has not near­ly been at the same lev­el in a Swedish con­text. When the first reports of increas­ing abuse of press free­dom and attacks on jour­nal­ists in Belarus came in the spring of 2020, ahead of the elec­tion the same year, few react­ed. 

Thanks to our part­ner orga­ni­za­tion, Belarus Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Reporters With­out Bor­ders was able to be vig­i­lant, dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and con­demn the sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try. When the so-called elec­tion was a fact and the attacks on free and inde­pen­dent media were sys­tem­atized, we took to the streets.

Dur­ing the peri­od 2020 to 2021, more than 600 jour­nal­ists have been arrest­ed and togeth­er they have spent more than 10 000 days in prison. In August 2021 Reporters With­out Bor­ders and the World Orga­ni­za­tion Against Tor­ture pub­lished a report on how jour­nal­ists were sub­ject­ed to tor­ture and vio­lence.

From August 2020 to Octo­ber 2021, 300 jour­nal­ists had to leave Belarus. This report, which was ini­ti­at­ed before the out­break of the war in Ukraine, is about these jour­nal­ists and points to sev­er­al of the chal­lenges now fac­ing those jour­nal­ists flee­ing Ukraine and Rus­sia as well.

Swe­den and oth­er EU coun­tries should cre­ate struc­tures to be able to receive jour­nal­ists, not only from Belarus but also from Ukraine and Rus­sia and give them the pre­req­ui­sites to con­tin­ue report­ing on their home coun­tries even from exile. 

Reporters With­out Bor­ders has for this pur­pose start­ed the fund JX Fund, from which both indi­vid­ual jour­nal­ists and media hous­es can apply for fund­ing.

Oth­er­wise, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism in East­ern Europe will be silenced and press free­dom will be com­plete­ly extin­guished. 

Erik Halk­jaer, pres­i­dent of Reporters With­out Bor­ders Swe­den.

The fol­low­ing is an attempt to por­tray the sit­u­a­tion for the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives who have left Belarus.

300 That many independent journalists were forced to leave Belarus from August 2020 to the end of October 2021.

Source: BAJ

The report is based on in-depth inter­views with 12 exile jour­nal­ists from Belarus. One of the jour­nal­ists is anonymized for secu­ri­ty rea­sons. For the same rea­son, we have also omit­ted infor­ma­tion about which media some of them work for and where they are based. The report is also based on sta­tis­tics and a sur­vey from the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, which was dis­solved by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties in August 2021. The sta­tis­tics avail­able are small and lim­it­ed and it is a chal­lenge that it can not be com­pared with any oth­er reli­able sta­tis­tics.

Accord­ing to BAJ, 300 inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives were forced to leave the coun­try from August 2020 to Octo­ber 2021. At the same time the num­ber might in fact be even larg­er since jour­nal­ists have gone under­ground or do not have a fixed loca­tion. Due to the war in Ukraine sev­er­al of the jour­nal­ists who sought refuge there have been forced to flee a sec­ond time.

A COUNTRY DIFFICULT TO COVER

Before the elec­tion, it was just hard. Time to time we felt this pres­sure, but work­ing as a jour­nal­ist was still some­thing you could do. But after the elec­tion, it was like a war. When I left home in the morn­ing, I didn’t know if I would see my daugh­ter or my hus­band again. 

Maria Gritz, reporter at Bel­sat TV, now in exile in Poland.

On August 9th, 2020, the results of the rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus are announced. The incum­bent pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko wins the elec­tion with more than 80 per­cent of the votes. 

Both before but espe­cial­ly after the elec­tion, mas­sive protests erupt and thou­sands and thou­sands of peo­ple gath­er in sev­er­al cities, among oth­ers in the cap­i­tal Min­sk. Pres­i­dent Lukashenko strikes back. Hard. With water can­nons, tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets.

Pub­lic inter­est is great and media cov­er­age mas­sive, but for many of the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists who report from the demon­stra­tions, the blue press vest, which pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed a cer­tain amount of pro­tec­tion, will be the oppo­site instead.

The jour­nal­ists now become a tar­get for secu­ri­ty forces. 

FACTS: BELARUS

Offi­cial name
Respub­li­ka Belarus/Republic of Belarus

Con­sti­tu­tion
repub­lic, uni­tary state

Head of state
pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko (1994 –)

Head of gov­ern­ment
prime min­is­ter Roman Golovchenko (2020 –)

Pop­u­la­tion
9 398 861 (2020)

Cap­i­tal and its pop­u­la­tion
Min­sk 2 028 000 (UN esti­mate 2020)

Source: UI/Landguiden

Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of jour­nal­ists (BAJ) more than 133 seri­ous vio­la­tions against jour­nal­ists were record­ed between May 8, when the elec­tion cam­paign start­ed, and August 11, 48 hours after the elec­tion.

On August 10, 2020, Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja, reporter at the inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian news­pa­per Nasha Niva, is present in Min­sk to report on the protests.

– Every­thing was peace­ful and peo­ple just gath­ered with plac­ards and ban­ners. We were around ten jour­nal­ists and most of us wore blue press vests. Sud­den­ly, about twen­ty men from the secu­ri­ty police come run­ning from across the street, says Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja. 

The pro­test­ers start run­ning and Natal­lia sees the crowd being shot at by the secu­ri­ty forces. Natal­lia and her col­leagues soon decide that it is too risky to stay.

– When we are leav­ing, I feel some­thing hit­ting my leg. I look down and see a wound. My col­leagues try to help me to get away and some peo­ple who have a car parked near­by take me to a hos­pi­tal.

Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja soon finds out she has been shot by a rub­ber bul­let. She will remain at the hos­pi­tal for one month. And the shot was no acci­dent, she says.

– We have a record­ed film that shows that the shot was def­i­nite­ly aimed at me. It was pn pur­pose.

This is one of the tar­get­ed attacks on Belarus inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists reg­is­tered by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ).

480 That many arrests of journalists were registered in Belarus in 2020.

Source: BAJ

Radio Free Europe jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei was arrest­ed and beat­en after report­ing from a demon­stra­tion. 

IMPRISONED JOURNALISTS

In Stalin’s time, peo­ple used to say some­thing like: ”We just need the guy and we will find a suit­able arti­cle for him for lat­er”. Maybe it’s the same thing in Belarus now. They can arrest you and then they find a charge. It’s not a prob­lem for them. 

Alexan­der Yaro­she­vich, Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter.

Since 2020 Belarus has plum­met­ed in Reporters With­out Bor­ders’ press free­dom index. Jour­nal­ists and blog­gers crit­i­cal of the regime are exposed to threats, vio­lence and arrests. The Inter­net has been cut off and lead­ing news sites have been blocked. Access to infor­ma­tion is severe­ly lim­it­ed. 

In oth­er words, work­ing as an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist in Belarus has nev­er been easy. But in con­nec­tion with the 2020 elec­tion, it has become almost impos­si­ble. Accord­ing to a report by Reporters With­out Bor­ders and the World Orga­ni­za­tion Against Tor­ture, the Belaru­sian media corps is sub­ject to sys­tem­at­ic repres­sion where cen­sor­ship, fines, threats, revoked press accred­i­ta­tions, raids on both news­rooms and indi­vid­ual jour­nal­ists’ homes, con­fis­ca­tion of equip­ment, arrests, extra­ju­di­cial tri­als and even tor­ture have become part of every­day life.

After ini­tial­ly detain­ing arrest­ed jour­nal­ists for short peri­ods, the author­i­ties began hand­ing out longer prison sen­tences in the autumn of 2020. The first vic­tims of the new pol­i­cy were jour­nal­ists Daria Chultso­va and Kat­siary­na Andreye­va of the inde­pen­dent tele­vi­sion chan­nel Bel­sat TV. They were sen­tenced to two years in prison for broad­cast­ing live dur­ing demon­stra­tions. Andreye­va was lat­er on also charged with trea­son and faces up to 15 years in prison. 

The increas­ing repres­sion has been made pos­si­ble, among oth­er things, with changes in the law that caus­es lim­i­ta­tions for jour­nal­ists’ try­ing to do their job. Among oth­er things, in the mass media law, which for exam­ple makes it for­bid­den to livestream from unau­tho­rized gath­er­ings with­out per­mis­sion, and in the law against extrem­ist for­ma­tions, which makes it for­bid­den to pub­lish and dis­trib­ute con­tent that is con­sid­ered to be extrem­ist. Thus, inde­pen­dent media can be labeled as extrem­ists and pub­li­cists and jour­nal­ists can be sen­tenced to long prison terms.

But it is not only risky to work as an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist in Belarus, it is also dan­ger­ous to read their reports. Any­one who, for exam­ple, fol­lows an extrem­ist-labeled Telegram- or Youtube-chan­nel risks impris­on­ment.

– Any media may be labeled extrem­ist and the author­i­ties do not need a court deci­sion to do so. Police and secu­ri­ty ser­vices can do this by them­selves and they do not always tell the rea­son for it. Being labeled an extrem­ist media means that every­one who in any way active­ly par­tic­i­pates or con­tributes to it is con­sid­ered a crim­i­nal, says a jour­nal­ist who, for secu­ri­ty rea­sons, wants to remain anony­mous. 

26 That many journalists are imprisoned in Belarus at the moment.

Source: RSF

Cur­rent­ly 28 jour­nal­ists and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are impris­oned in Belarus (april 2022). Sev­er­al of those pre­vi­ous­ly arrest­ed tes­ti­fy to dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, such as over­crowd­ed cells and men­tal and phys­i­cal abuse. 

One ear­ly morn­ing on May 12, 2021, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and jour­nal­ist Tanya Kapitono­va cov­ers a demon­stra­tion in cen­tral Min­sk. A group of women dressed in sym­bol­i­cal­ly white clothes and with white flow­ers in their hands have gath­ered in the square Kamaroŭs­ki Mar­ket where 200 women, just over a year ear­li­er, joined a man­i­fes­ta­tion against the vio­lence of the regime.

– The protests had last­ed for nine months, as long as it takes for a woman to go through a preg­nan­cy and give birth to a child. It was such a sym­bol­ic date, says Tanya Kapitono­va.

Tanya Kapitono­va cov­ers the event and takes sev­er­al pho­tographs. Then she returns home to write her arti­cle.

The next day there is a knock on the door.

– There were five men dressed as civil­ians. They did not say their names or who they were. They just grabbed me and took me to the police sta­tion, says Tanya Kapitono­va. 

At the police sta­tion, Tanya Kapitono­va is first put alone in a cold, emp­ty room. Then the inter­roga­tors come and pick her up.

– For two, three hours, I was inter­ro­gat­ed by three men. They tried to find out if I knew the women at the demon­stra­tion and when they under­stood that I didn’t know them, they start­ed ask­ing for con­tact infor­ma­tion for my edi­tors instead. I didn’t say any­thing and after three hours they said: Okay, get rid of her. Next day there was a tri­al on Skype.

A wit­ness who, dur­ing the tri­al, is sit­ting in the same room as Tanya, claims that he saw her par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion and that she wore white clothes and had flow­ers like the oth­er pro­test­ers.

In spite of her denial of hav­ing par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tion, Tanya is sen­tenced to ten days in prison.

– We were 16 peo­ple in a cell intend­ed for two. There were no mat­tress­es, no hygiene prod­ucts, they did not want to give us the things that our rel­a­tives brought with them to us. So for ten days I lived a very ascetic life.

I came here to War­saw only with a small back­pack. I didn’t even bring my com­put­er, my cam­era or my hard dri­ves because it was like a sym­bol of my return. I will return.

Jour­nal­ist and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tanya Kapitono­va lives in exile in War­saw, Poland.

Mary­na Zolo­to­va, edi­tor-in-chief of the now extrem­ist-clas­si­fied news site TUT.by, was detained in Belarus.

There are not many inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists still work­ing in Belarus, but they do exist. Exact­ly how many is hard to know as quite a few have gone under­ground and write anony­mous­ly. Some can con­tin­ue open­ly but no longer report on top­ics that may pro­voke the regime or crit­i­cize those in pow­er.

–  All crit­i­cism can be regard­ed as extrem­ism, even a small chat online, and it cre­ates great prob­lems for jour­nal­ists who would like to speak up. The jour­nal­ists work­ing from inside the coun­try have this sit­u­a­tion of con­stant pres­sure. Some­times they avoid report­ing from cer­tain events where they can be tak­en into cus­tody. So unfor­tu­nate­ly there are few voic­es from with­in the coun­try that are heard but far from all are silent, says a jour­nal­ist who wants to remain anony­mous.

The jour­nal­ists who remain in the coun­try are forced to endure raids, arbi­trary arrests, threats and vio­lence from the secu­ri­ty police. They also live with a con­stant fear that they or their loved ones will be sub­ject­ed to reprisals because of their report­ing. Many Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists there­fore see no oth­er solu­tion than leav­ing the coun­try.

That day the police came to prac­ti­cal­ly all my col­leagues from Bel­sat in dif­fer­ent cities around Belarus. I under­stood that it was a mat­ter of hours, maybe less before they would come to me. Sud­den­ly it became so clear that it was not a bad dream. It was for real. I took some clothes, my daughter’s pass­port and my own lat­er on and we left the coun­try. We trav­eled for two days in a row. The jour­ney was extreme­ly tough.

The jour­nal­ist Maria Gritz works for Bel­sat TV, clas­si­fied as extrem­ist. She lived in exile in Ukraine but due to the war she has been forced to flee again, this time to Poland.

LIFE IN EXILE – CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES

What is the sit­u­a­tion like for the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists who have left Belarus and sought refuge in oth­er coun­tries? Where are they? What are the chal­lenges, and how is jour­nal­ism affect­ed by the geo­graph­i­cal dis­tance?

Most of the 300 jour­nal­ists who have left Belarus have set­tled in coun­tries bor­der­ing their own. Most of them went to Poland, Ukraine and Lithua­nia – coun­tries bor­der­ing Belarus. At the same time, the war in Ukraine has forced many jour­nal­ists who had set­tled there to flee once again.

Poland 38,4% (56 jour­nal­ists)

Ukraine 22,6% (33)

Lithua­nia 15,8% (23)

Geor­gia 13% (19)

Latvia 0,7 % (1)

Czech Repub­li­co 0,7 (1)

Oth­er coun­tries 8,9 % (13)

And life in exile is far from easy, accord­ing to a sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) between Octo­ber and Novem­ber 2021 among mem­bers of BAJ forced to a life in exile. A total of 140 peo­ple answered the sur­vey. 

CHALLENGES

• Legal­iza­tion in the coun­try of res­i­dence 52.1% 

• Search­ing for hous­ing 26.4% 

• Find­ing premis­es for work 10% 

• Job search 39.3% 

• Find­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for med­ical care and reha­bil­i­ta­tion 37.9% 

• Seek­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal help 20.7% 

• Search for fam­i­ly relo­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties 17.9% 

• Search for a cir­cle of col­leagues and like-mind­ed peo­ple 35.7% 

• Improve­ment of the lan­guage lev­el in the host coun­try 53.6% 

• Search for edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions for chil­dren 11.4% 

  Source: Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

I worked as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er for twen­ty years. In Belarus I had a name, I was famous. Even if I lost my job at the edi­to­r­i­al office where I worked, I would easy get a job else­where. Abroad, it is an impos­si­ble sit­u­a­tion and an impos­si­ble task to find a job for the com­pe­ti­tion is so great.

Vadim Zamirovs­ki was forced to give up his job as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er after leav­ing Belarus.

EARNING ONES LIVING

Accord­ing to a sur­vey by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists one of the chal­lenges for jour­nal­ists in exile is earn­ing a liv­ing in the new coun­try. 39 per­cent of the respon­dents list­ed job seek­ing as a major chal­lenge. Like­wise, the lack of a sta­ble income. 

The jour­nal­ists often have to sup­port not only them­selves, but also the fam­i­ly in exile or in Belarus. The cost of liv­ing is ris­ing as jour­nal­ists have to restart from scratch.

– Peo­ple here rent out their apart­ments unfur­nished, so you have to buy every­thing and it is very expen­sive. The first night in our rental apart­ment, my daugh­ter and I had no duvets when we went to sleep. Just my daughter’s lit­tle blan­ket. I was cry­ing all night long because I felt like the most hor­ri­ble moth­er in the world because this had been my choice. To put us in this sit­u­a­tion, says Maria Gritz, who first lived in exile in Ukraine but was forced to flee again when the war broke out. She now lives in War­saw, Poland. 

The dif­fi­cult finan­cial sit­u­a­tion means that jour­nal­ists may ini­tial­ly be depen­dent on finan­cial sup­port, not least to finance new projects. But even if there is sup­port to be had, not every­one knows how to apply for them.

–  Most of these peo­ple are used to work­ing in the news­room and hav­ing an edi­tor. To start a project on their own is not that easy for every­one. Even if there are pos­si­bil­i­ties to get access to financ­ing you still have to go through all this paper­work and these are jour­nal­ists and pho­tog­ra­phers who may nev­er have done any­thing like this before. It is a com­plete­ly new skill you have to learn and not every­one can do it, says Anton Trafi­movich, an exile jour­nal­ist in War­saw, Poland. 

The appli­ca­tion process can also involve a secu­ri­ty risk.

–  First of all, few jour­nal­ists know that the sup­port exists, and sec­ond­ly, some are scared that the admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dure will involve peo­ple from their home coun­try who might get into trou­ble, or that the chan­nels used for com­mu­ni­ca­tion are not secure or that infor­ma­tion will leak, says a jour­nal­ist who wish­es to remain anony­mous. 

Some of the jour­nal­ists may con­tin­ue to work for the Belaru­sian media that have moved their news­rooms abroad and for a Belaru­sian audi­ence. Some jour­nal­ists are still employed while oth­ers enter free­lance life.

Tanya Kapitono­va, who now lives in War­saw in Poland, can con­tin­ue to work for her news­room from a dis­tance, but now she has new tasks.

–  In Belarus, I was cre­at­ing con­tent. Now I work as an edi­tor and a proof­read­er. I read all the texts on our web­site, cor­rect errors and I pro­duce some mate­r­i­al for the web. So I do not cre­ate any­thing myself so it feels a bit unusu­al. I miss the feel­ing of cre­at­ing. But at the same time, it is fan­tas­tic not to have to wor­ry about being arrest­ed for doing my job, says Tanya Kapitono­va.

And not every­one can con­tin­ue to work as jour­nal­ists in exile. Things like increased com­pe­ti­tion in a new labor mar­ket, lan­guage bar­ri­ers, none or a lim­it­ed social net­work and the fact that the edi­to­r­i­al office you worked for has been forced to close down con­tributes to the dif­fi­cul­ty to con­tin­ue work­ing as a jour­nal­ist in exile. 

Pho­tog­ra­phers and pho­to­jour­nal­ists are most vul­ner­a­ble because they – unlike their writ­ing col­leagues – find it dif­fi­cult to report on their home coun­try from a dis­tance. Some of them there­fore have to change their pro­fes­sion.

–  I can‘t go out and take pho­tos, cov­er or make a report about Belarus when I am in Kyiv, says Vadim Zamirovs­ki, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er in Min­sk.

39 % of respondents in the survey listed job seeking as a challenge.

After many attempts to find a job as a pho­to­jour­nal­ist in Ukraine, where he moved after leav­ing Belarus, Vadim Zamirovs­ki was forced to change his career and is now study­ing to become a motion design­er.

–  Despite the fact that I have many friends here in Kyiv and that I have tried in every pos­si­ble way to find a job, I final­ly had to give up. I loved my job as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. It’s not just a pro­fes­sion but a lifestyle, so for me it was emo­tion­al­ly dif­fi­cult to change careers. But I have a fam­i­ly. I have a child to sup­port, he says.

Vadim Zamirovs­ki is one of the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who sought refuge in Ukraine and has been forced to relo­cate due to the war. Vadim Zamirovs­ki now lives in Vil­nius, Litauen.

There are no sta­tis­tics on how many exile jour­nal­ists who have left the pro­fes­sion, but it is clear that there will be con­se­quences since the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus risks being under-mon­i­tored if the num­ber of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists decreas­es

RESIDENCE PERMIT

The most impor­tant thing is to be able to stay legal­ly in a coun­try. It is the basic thing for being able to live a nor­mal life.

Vadim Zamirovs­ki, exile jour­nal­ist in Litu­a­nia.

52 per­cent of the par­tic­i­pants in the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists’ sur­vey from Octo­ber 2021, stat­ed that the process of visas and res­i­dence per­mits was a big chal­lenge in going into exile.

– It was eas­i­er for me to get a res­i­dence per­mit in Poland because, like many oth­er Belaru­sians, I have Pol­ish roots. It is an advan­tage that a per­son with a Pol­ish back­ground can invoke, and that made it eas­i­er to get a res­i­dence per­mit, says Rus­lan Kule­vich, exile jour­nal­ist in Poland.

Many exile jour­nal­ists, who need to leave Belarus quick­ly choose to go to coun­tries where Belaru­sian cit­i­zens do not need a visa and can apply for a res­i­dence per­mit lat­er on. Dif­fer­ent visa require­ments apply in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. In Geor­gia, for instance, you can stay for a whole year with­out a visa, in Lithua­nia a visa is required from day one and in Ukraine a Belaru­sian cit­i­zen can stay for 180 days, after which he or she must leave the coun­try for the same num­ber of days. 

Vadim Zamirovs­ki believes that one should make it eas­i­er for the refugees from Belarus and share his expe­ri­ences:

–  I had a prob­lem in Ukraine because I did not have an orig­i­nal let­ter from my edi­tor which showed that I, as a jour­nal­ist, applied for a res­i­dence per­mit. Since my edi­tor was impris­oned in Belarus, she could not give it to me and I only had a dig­i­tal copy. The Migra­tion Agency did not want to accept it, says Vadim Zamirovs­ki and con­tin­ues:

–  They did noth­ing wrong legal­ly, but if you want to help Belaru­sian refugees, you have to be able to look past these triv­i­al­i­ties and under­stand that the sit­u­a­tion is unique.

Also cum­ber­some bureau­cra­cy, lan­guage con­fu­sion, lack of infor­ma­tion on which rou­tines there are to apply for visa and res­i­dence per­mits can com­pli­cate and pro­long the asy­lum process.

52 % of the respondents in the survey thought that the process of visas and residence permits was a challenge.

Sev­er­al of the jour­nal­ists tes­ti­fy that the asy­lum process cre­ates an anx­i­ety that takes time and effort and leaves no space to han­dle oth­er prac­ti­cal mat­ters that need to be addressed. It also becomes a men­tal obsta­cle in the process of inte­grat­ing in a new coun­try.

– On paper it is quite easy to get pro­tec­tion if you come to Ukraine, as it is a visa-free coun­try, but in real­i­ty it is far more com­pli­cat­ed. If you have not your legal sta­tus set­tled, you can not think seri­ous­ly about work­ing, says a jour­nal­ist who wish­es to remain anony­mous. 

It was no coin­ci­dence that I moved here but a thor­ough­ly con­sid­ered deci­sion. This city reminds me a lot of my home­town. Many Belaru­sians live here and since I have Pol­ish roots, I know a lit­tle Pol­ish. I under­stand and can make myself under­stood so I man­age.

Rus­lan Kule­vich, exile jour­nal­ist in Poland.

LANGUAGE

Belarus has two offi­cial lan­guages: Belaru­sian and Russ­ian. Pol­ish and Ukrain­ian are also spo­ken in the coun­try. This may be one rea­son why exile jour­nal­ists choose to set­tle in Ukraine, where a large part of the pop­u­la­tion speaks Russ­ian, and in Poland. 

At the same time, exile jour­nal­ists state that lan­guage con­fu­sion leads to prob­lems in the new coun­try. 54 per­cent of the respon­dents in the Belarus Asso­ci­a­tion of Journalists’s sur­vey found it dif­fi­cult to learn a new lan­guage or to improve exist­ing lan­guage skills to a lev­el that works.

Lim­it­ed lan­guage skills may exclude jour­nal­ists from the labor mar­ket. If they can´t speak Eng­lish either the oppor­tu­ni­ties for coop­er­a­tion with inter­na­tion­al employ­ers will also be lim­it­ed, says Rus­lan Kule­vich, exile jour­nal­ist in Poland.

54 % Of respondents in the survey thought that language is a challenge.

–  You have to know how to speak Eng­lish. In Lithua­nia, you man­age in Russ­ian. In Poland, those who come from Belarus and can speak Belaru­sian may be able to get along in Pol­ish as the lan­guages are close­ly relat­ed. But you can go no fur­ther with­out lan­guage skills. Ger­many, Swe­den and oth­er coun­tries are not an option to those who don’t speak Eng­lish. All doors are closed if you can­not com­mu­ni­cate, he says.

THREATS

.

After the plane with the blog­ger Raman Prata­se­vich was forced to make an emer­gency land­ing in Belarus, we have become much more wary in mat­ters of per­son­al safe­ty.  We don´t reveal where we live and stuff like that. You can eas­i­ly get here by car and grab a per­son, put him in the trunk and leave the coun­try with­out any­one notic­ing. So we are cau­tious.

Rus­lan Kule­vich, exile jour­nal­ist in Poland.

Sev­er­al of the jour­nal­ists inter­viewed in this report state that they feel safer and more free in their pro­fes­sion­al role in exile. Some feel that they can now pub­lish their texts – even those crit­i­cal of the regime – with­out fear of reprisals.

Through­out my career, I have writ­ten what I want so I try not to cen­sor myself. If I want to be crit­i­cal, I am. That’s how it is. Here in War­saw, I do not think, like some oth­ers, that I should be afraid. If I were sit­ting here being afraid, what then would the peo­ple of Belarus do? That’s the main rule of my job, to call things by their prop­er names.

Jour­nal­ist Zmici­er Mick­iewicz, at Bel­sat TV, on the field.

Oth­ers are more wary about what they write.

– I pub­lish arti­cles with­out my name and most jour­nal­ists who work for inde­pen­dent media do that. So in this way, I feel safe myself. But at the same time we have to think care­ful­ly about what we write because two of our col­leagues are in jail. If the police can´t take revenge on us, they can take their revenge on our col­leagues instead, says Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja, exile jour­nal­ist in Lithua­nia.

It hap­pens that the secu­ri­ty police pays a vis­it to the jour­nal­ists’ fam­i­ly mem­bers in Belarus, threat­ens them and forces them to endure raids. The fear that the fam­i­ly in Belarus could get into trou­ble can lead to self-cen­sor­ship, says Anton Trafi­movich, who is now in War­saw, Poland.

– I haven’t thought about this until recent­ly when I heard about a guy who was an anar­chist in Belarus and who then left for Poland. Some time ago, his moth­er was detained in Belarus because she had raised a bad son and that this was her own fault. All of us jour­nal­ists imme­di­ate­ly felt: “Help, we still have our fam­i­lies in Belarus. Should we now start think­ing about what we write and say? ”, says Anton Trafi­movich.

And going into exile is far from a guar­an­tee of secu­ri­ty. That is total­ly clear, giv­en the present sit­u­a­tion. While pro­duc­ing this report the secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in Europe has changed dras­ti­cal­ly, due to Putins ongo­ing inva­sion of Ukraine. On Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022, Pres­i­dent Vladimir Puti car­ries out a full-scale inva­sion of the neigh­bor­ing coun­try – a coun­try where many Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have sought refuge. We receive reg­u­lar reports on cities that are shelled with rock­et fire, on ris­ing death tolls and on peo­ple flee­ing their homes. The anx­i­ety and fear among the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists in Ukraine is great. Three of those inter­viewed for the report have fled to Lithua­nia and Poland.

– Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists share the same high secu­ri­ty risk as their Ukrain­ian col­leagues. Some jour­nal­ists have fled to west­ern Ukraine, oth­ers have left the coun­try. It is a very dra­mat­ic sit­u­a­tion, says a jour­nal­ist who wish­es to remain anony­mous.

Since the esca­lat­ing repres­sion in Belarus in August 2020, secu­ri­ty con­cerns with­in the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist corps have increased, both among indi­vid­ual jour­nal­ists and among the inde­pen­dent news­rooms that have sur­vived. 

Above all, the edi­to­r­i­al staff invests in edu­cat­ing their jour­nal­ists in dig­i­tal secu­ri­ty, says exile jour­nal­ist Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko, who first lived in exile in Ukraine but had to flee again.

–  When the Inter­net was blocked and shut­down for three days in Belarus, every­one learned how to use VPN. But now we need to explain to peo­ple how to use oth­er dig­i­tal tools in order to keep and access infor­ma­tion they want and to pro­tect them­selves. It was not an oblig­a­tion of the media before but now I think we have to do this for our audi­ence to keep their trust.

DIVIDED FAMILIES

Belarus is no longer a sto­ry about a place but a sto­ry about peo­ple. Belarus is now every­where because we Belaru­sians are every­where.

Maria Gritz, exile jour­nal­ist in Poland.

Life in exile can mean that fam­i­lies split up, either in the short or long term, which sev­er­al of the inter­viewed jour­nal­ists high­light as a prob­lem. It’s not always eco­nom­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble for the whole fam­i­ly to join the jour­nal­ist in exile. 

18 % of the respondents in the survey stated that finding ways to family relocation was a big challenge.

If the exile jour­nal­ist, fur­ther­more, is the one who car­ries the main respon­si­bil­i­ty for sup­port­ing the fam­i­ly, finan­cial prob­lems also arise when he or she moves, for in the begin­ning the jour­nal­ist usu­al­ly has no or lit­tle income. 

Accord­ing to the sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, 18 per­cent of the respon­dents said that find­ing ways to fam­i­ly relo­ca­tion was a chal­lenge. The fact that the fam­i­ly remains in Belarus entails a risk that they will be sub­ject­ed to threats, extor­tion and retal­i­a­tion, which could lead to self-cen­sor­ship by the exiled jour­nal­ist.

– My hus­band was very wor­ried when my daugh­ter and I left Belarus. He did not know where we were and dur­ing our jour­ney I had no way of con­nect­ing with him. You should not con­tact your fam­i­ly when leav­ing the coun­try as they can be detained. They can use your fam­i­ly to black­mail you to go back, says Maria Gritz.

The great­est prob­lem is being deprived of a dai­ly con­text. Not being able to inter­act and meet the peo­ple who live in your own coun­try, not being able to soak up the atmos­phere, what is going on, what peo­ple are talk­ing about. It cre­ates some kind of arti­fi­cial sit­u­a­tion where you are alien­at­ed from real­i­ty. It is very dif­fi­cult to work out­side a con­text.

Jour­nal­ist Iry­na Arakhovskaya lives in exile in War­saw, Poland.

CONTEXT

Sev­er­al of the inter­viewed jour­nal­ists say that it feels as if they have been deprived of a con­text. Some feel iso­lat­ed, espe­cial­ly those who have left Belarus on their own and do not have their fam­i­ly or an edi­to­r­i­al office to sup­port them. They expe­ri­ence that it can be dif­fi­cult to find a social con­text. 36 per­cent of those inter­viewed in the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists’ (BAJ) sur­vey finds this chal­leng­ing. 

One of them is jour­nal­ist Anton Trafi­movich, who lives and works as a free­lance jour­nal­ist in the Pol­ish cap­i­tal War­saw.

– What I lack here is the spir­it of the news­rooms in Belarus. Because many news­rooms were raid­ed and no longer exist, jour­nal­ists come here on their own. And even if there is a net­work of jour­nal­ists here, you are still on your own. There is a lack of a pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and thus sup­port, he says. 

36 % Of the respondents in the survey consider the lack of a journalistic context as a challenge.

In sev­er­al of the coun­tries where Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists move, such as Poland and Lithua­nia, there is a large pro­por­tion of immi­grant Belaru­sians, but despite this it can be dif­fi­cult to find a place to meet oth­er exile jour­nal­ists, espe­cial­ly if you work as a free­lance.

Accord­ing to jour­nal­ist Han­na Liubako­va, who lives in Vil­nius, Lithua­nia, such a con­text is a must to be able to set­tle in a new place and to estab­lish col­lab­o­ra­tions.

– It would be good if there were some kind of media hubs for jour­nal­ists where we could work, exchange infor­ma­tion and cre­ate some­thing togeth­er. It could lead to col­lab­o­ra­tions and make us stronger. Even though our news­rooms have been destroyed, we can still do some­thing togeth­er, cre­ate new projects, says Han­na Liubako­va.

I think all Belaru­sians, espe­cial­ly jour­nal­ists, are still expe­ri­enc­ing trau­ma. It is hard to reset your­self even if you went abroad. We still dream about the protests, about the beat­ing, about the police… We are still in the mid­dle of this fight. That’s what makes it so hard, I think.

Anton Trafi­movich at his home office in War­saw, Poland.

TRAUMA AND GUILT

Many exiled jour­nal­ists suf­fer from phys­i­cal and men­tal trau­ma, both as a result of hav­ing worked as jour­nal­ists in Belarus with all that it can entail in terms of abuse, threats and arrests, and as a result of flee­ing their home­land.

Many times, jour­nal­ists have to leave the coun­try in a hur­ry due to an increased threat, fear of reprisals or because they risk being pros­e­cut­ed – just because they have done their job.

– The most dif­fi­cult thing is when jour­nal­ists have to leave Belarus very quick­ly. Just leave every­thing behind, with a small bag, not know­ing where to go. These peo­ple are the ones who are the most vul­ner­a­ble now. They burn out. So, the need for psy­cho­log­i­cal help is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant thing for every­one right now. They need help and sup­port, and the sup­port must be con­tin­u­ous, not just some­thing they get from time to time, for the cri­sis is still going on, says a jour­nal­ist, who wish­es to remain anony­mous.

Anoth­er aspect of the flight is that many jour­nal­ists find it dif­fi­cult to accept that they have been forced into exile, says Anton Trafi­movich.

– I think there is a huge psy­cho­log­i­cal issue in relo­ca­tion because it’s hard to real­ize that you your­self are a refugee. For instance, I met a friend who is a pho­to­jour­nal­ist and who came to War­saw a few months ago. She can hard­ly work or do any­thing because the only thing she thinks about is that she wants to return to Belarus. She is real­ly frus­trat­ed and doesn‘t like her sta­tus as a refugee. As for myself and my wife we had a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy. We moved to Poland, with­out set­ting any dead­lines or mile­stones, and we will just live here until we get a clear sig­nal that it is safe to return, he says.

38 % of respondents in the survey considered it difficult to find opportunities for medical care. 21 percent think it is a challenge to find psychological help.

Oth­ers don‘t want to see them­selves as exiled but con­sid­er the move a tem­po­rary one.

– I stayed in a hotel for sev­er­al months because I didn‘t want to look for an apart­ment. I kind of refused to start liv­ing any­where else. My home is in Belarus. This is my coun­try. And real­iz­ing that you can­not go back, that you can­not see your mom or the for­est from your win­dow… It is very painful, says exile jour­nal­ist Han­na Liubako­va, who lives in Vil­nius, Lithua­nia.

Sev­er­al jour­nal­ists also describe that they feel pow­er­less fac­ing the devel­op­ment in Belarus and guilt for leav­ing the coun­try and their col­leagues behind, some­thing that con­sumes them. Exile jour­nal­ist Tanya Kapitono­va pun­ished her­self for a long time for hav­ing fled.

– I asked myself every day: Why did I leave? Was it because of para­noia or intu­ition? That was the most dif­fi­cult thing for me. But final­ly, I under­stood that I should not vic­tim­ize myself because it wouldn’t make any­thing bet­ter for me or my work. 

Tanya Kapitono­va felt that by leav­ing Belarus, she let her col­leagues down and the fear of reprisals makes her, despite her being in Poland, afraid of being as crit­i­cal as she would like.

– I try not to be this hero at the front line, the one who reveals the truth and is ready to do any­thing, because I can’t. I would like to say some­thing but I’m not ready. I find myself in a sit­u­a­tion where my voice is stolen once more.This con­stant feel­ing that I can do more but can’t man­age it, it destroys me, says Tanya Kapitono­va.

It is clear that the journalist’s expe­ri­ences are leav­ing traces, both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, and they are seek­ing med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal help in exile to be able to move on.

At the same time, 38 per­cent of the respon­dents in the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists´ (BAJ) sur­vey con­sid­er it dif­fi­cult to find oppor­tu­ni­ties for med­ical care and reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and 21 per­cent think it is a chal­lenge to find psy­cho­log­i­cal help.

Anoth­er impor­tant thing that they high­light is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a break from the, in many cas­es, heavy respon­si­bil­i­ty of every­day life in exile and gain strength to be able to con­tin­ue work­ing. This type of retreat for both exile jour­nal­ists and those in Belarus is some­thing that the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has arranged.

– We pho­to­jour­nal­ists had a very nice expe­ri­ence at a res­i­dence for pho­tog­ra­phers near the Baltic Sea in Poland. For two days we worked on our pho­to archives and cre­at­ed new projects. I remem­ber that it gave us strength, to breathe fresh air and look at the sea, and that it was very inspir­ing, says Tanya Kapitono­va.

We do not have access to the field. We can not see what is hap­pen­ing with our own eyes, which was the very essence of my job when I worked in Belarus. It was my prin­ci­ple to be out in the field and talk to peo­ple in per­son and just write things that I myself wit­nessed. Now it’s impos­si­ble.

Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko first lived in exile in Kyiv, Ukraine but has been forced to flee once more.

JOURNALISM IN EXILE – ANONYMITY, TRUST AND INNOVATION

Pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko’s sys­tem­at­ic crack­down on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists  Belarus has cre­at­ed a new, more or less thor­ough­ly dig­i­tal media land­scape and new con­di­tions for inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists to report on their home­land – both in Belarus and in exile.

This also affects the jour­nal­is­tic prod­uct: more anony­mous sources, dif­fi­cul­ties in ver­i­fy­ing infor­ma­tion, self-cen­sor­ship and less jour­nal­is­tic trans­paren­cy due to an increased need for source pro­tec­tion, are some of the changes high­light­ed by the exile jour­nal­ists. But after all, jour­nal­ists man­age to get around this and find new, inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to cov­er their home­land. An evolv­ing media land­scape requires new strate­gies, says exile jour­nal­ist Zmici­er Mick­iewicz, who lives in War­saw, Poland.

– At the moment, the main instru­ment for democ­ra­cy is the encrypt­ed app Telegram, which makes it pos­si­ble not only to dis­sem­i­nate but also to share and obtain infor­ma­tion anony­mous­ly with­out leav­ing a trace. So it’s very easy for peo­ple to send data. You can take a pic­ture, send it and Telegram kills all meta­da­ta. Even if the police take your phone, it is impos­si­ble to find out who sent the pic­ture. That’s how it works.

Many exile jour­nal­ists con­tin­ue to work for the Belaru­sian media and for a Belaru­sian audi­ence. These are the media that had the oppor­tu­ni­ty and the finances to move their news­rooms abroad. But the con­di­tions for report­ing on Belarus from a dis­tance are dif­fer­ent.

The biggest change, of course, is that exile jour­nal­ists can­not cov­er what is hap­pen­ing from the ground in Belarus. They there­fore work close­ly with their col­leagues who are still in the coun­try and with their read­ers who send pic­tures, videos and updates via encrypt­ed apps. In this way, a type of cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism has tak­en shape in Belarus, says Zmici­er Mick­iewicz.

– The best jour­nal­ists are still in the coun­try. Every­one who has a smart­phone with a cam­era in a way can be a jour­nal­ist, so it is impos­si­ble to hide any­thing.

But deliv­er­ing infor­ma­tion to inde­pen­dent media is far from safe. As a sub­scriber to a Telegram chan­nel linked to one of the media, brand­ed as extrem­ist by the author­i­ties, you can be sen­tenced to impris­on­ment for up to sev­en years. And the stronger the pres­sure is from the author­i­ties, the more jour­nal­ists and the belaru­sian peo­ple have to know about cyber secu­ri­ty.

Despite the risks, the audi­ence con­tin­ues to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and sup­port inde­pen­dent media, says Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko.

– Some weeks ago, our Telegram chan­nel was hacked by the spe­cial forces in Belarus. It was vio­lent­ly hacked because they arrest­ed one of the admin­is­tra­tors of the account and it was in con­trol of the spe­cial forces for ten min­utes. They man­aged to put out an announce­ment to the audi­ence say­ing they know who sub­scribed to the chan­nel and that they would be pun­ished. When we lat­er gained con­trol of the account, we had lost less than five per­cent of our audi­ence, she says.

Accord­ing to Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko this proves that the peo­ple of Belarus have more con­fi­dence in inde­pen­dent media now than ever before.

– It means a lot to me because I under­stand that despite the risk of repres­sion, arrests and oth­er con­se­quences peo­ple con­tin­ue to sub­scribe to extrem­ist-brand­ed media. This means that our work means a lot to our audi­ence and that we must con­tin­ue.

In gen­er­al, it is not as risky for exiled Belaru­sians to give inter­views to inde­pen­dent media as for those who live in the coun­try, which is why jour­nal­ists often talk to Belaru­sian experts, com­men­ta­tors and the oppo­si­tion abroad, says Anton Trafi­movich.

– There is a cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple who are not afraid to give com­ments. For instance, rel­a­tives of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers who are already in the spot­light and who feel that they have noth­ing to lose. There are also some experts in Belarus who may con­sid­er talk­ing as well, but I don´t know. I think it’s only a mat­ter of time before they might be detained.

But the fear of retal­i­a­tion has con­se­quences. Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko describes it as jour­nal­ism hav­ing entered ”an anony­mous era”.

– This is, in many ways, an era of anonymi­ty, since peo­ple are afraid to com­mu­ni­cate with extrem­ist media. Even experts are afraid to talk to us, since Belaru­sian author­i­ties see those who work with analy­sis as a par­tic­u­lar threat. It is also an anony­mous era in the sense that jour­nal­ists – for var­i­ous rea­sons – fear that their fam­i­lies in Belarus will be pros­e­cut­ed, she says.

As the jour­nal­ists’ fam­i­lies in many cas­es remain in Belarus, there is an indi­rect threat even though the jour­nal­ist is in safe­ty in anoth­er coun­try. This can lead to self-cen­sor­ship. The jour­nal­ist may pre­fer to opt out of sub­jects that could pro­voke Belaru­sian author­i­ties or they could pub­lish arti­cles anony­mous­ly rather than risk expos­ing the fam­i­ly to poten­tial dan­ger. This also affects the jour­nal­is­tic prod­uct.

– All crit­i­cism can be con­sid­ered extrem­ism. Even a small chat can be seen as an extrem­ist group. It cre­ates major prob­lems for those jour­nal­ists who want to make their voic­es heard and raise cer­tain social or polit­i­cal issues or report on polit­i­cal events, says one jour­nal­ist, who wish­es to remain anony­mous.

13 That many media channels were branded extremist in Belarus in 2021.

At this time when exile jour­nal­ists are depen­dent on sec­ondary infor­ma­tion, fact check­ing is being put to the test – now more than ever before. And there are those who exploit that vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for their own pur­pos­es, says Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko.

– There were cas­es where Belaru­sian secu­ri­ty ser­vices, or even oth­er enthu­si­asts, have pro­duced lots of fake news try­ing to make inde­pen­dent media report­ing on them. We have to put much more effort into find­ing out if the infor­ma­tion we receive is true or not.

This puts high­er demands on the edi­to­r­i­al staff in the form of time, knowl­edge and resources. 

– We go through a lot of train­ing on how to increase our fact check­ing-skills and we use many dif­fer­ent tools. We make fact-checks on our videos and pho­tos via meta­da­ta try­ing to under­stand whether they are true or not. We also check all the news we col­lect via social media and net­works. We need to con­firm the infor­ma­tion with sev­er­al oth­er sources. It takes a lot more time but we need to do this in order to main­tain the trust we have from our audi­ence, says Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko.

Even if the jour­nal­ists find ways to con­tin­ue report­ing on their home coun­try, there are cer­tain sto­ries and top­ics that might end up in media-shad­ow, says Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja.

We have our audi­ence in Belarus who help us with some pho­tos or who can talk to us and to tell what has hap­pened. So it’s a great help for us abroad. Yes. And maybe because of covid, even a year before, we make a lot of inter­views online because it wasn’t safe to meet in life. Yes. So now it’s not a prob­lem to make an inter­view online because peo­ple, it’s not some­thing new, it’s OK for them and almost every­one have Telegram or Zoom and maybe it’s the one plus of covid for this sit­u­a­tion that we learned how to do the arti­cles with­out meet­ing in life. Mm-Hmm. So but the prob­lem, of course, that we can’t write about some themes, some top­ics, because if we were in the city or in the coun­try we can go to a place or some­thing else and to see if it is the truth of what we heard, or not. Now some­times it’s dif­fi­cult, even with the help of audi­ence, so we are to … Well we are not to do some top­ics because we’re not sure that the news we hold are objec­tive and the truth. Mm-Hmm. [178.1s]

– We have our audi­ence in Belarus who can tell us what is hap­pen­ing and it is a great help for us abroad. Because of covid, we already did a lot of inter­views online, since it wasn´t safe to meet irl, so this is not a prob­lem now. Almost every­one has Telegram or Zoom and we have learned how to write arti­cles with­out meet­ing face to face. But the prob­lem is that we can´t write about cer­tain top­ics because we are not there. It is dif­fi­cult, espe­cial­ly if it is some­thing very local, in a city where we do not have as large an audi­ence. We can’t report on cer­tain top­ics since we’re not sure what is objec­tive and true, says Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja and con­tin­ues:

– Now that peo­ple are afraid to talk to inde­pen­dent media, we also have few­er sto­ries about peo­ple. Not about pol­i­tics, but about life and things like that. Peo­ple are afraid that the atten­tion would be bad for them.

Despite this, jour­nal­ists con­tin­ue to work to ensure that the voic­es from with­in Belarus are not silenced. It is our job to make sure that they have all the pre­req­ui­sites they need to do their job.

THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION

The sit­u­a­tion shows that jour­nal­ists can and will con­tin­ue to work. You can imprison us, you can block all our sites. We will cre­ate new ones. We will move and con­tin­ue work­ing. We are like the phoenix, we‘ll be born again.

Han­na Liubako­va, exile jour­nal­ist in Vil­nius, Lithua­nia.

Before the elec­tion in August 2020, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, there were about 4 000 jour­nal­ists and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Belarus – a coun­try with a pop­u­la­tion of just over 9.4 mil­lion. This can be com­pared with Swe­den, which in 2019 had just over 10 300 jour­nal­ists on a pop­u­la­tion of just over 10.4 mil­lion. In addi­tion, 2 000 of these 4 000 belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were employed by state-con­trolled media, 1 300 are inde­pen­dent and mem­bers of BAJ. 

The Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists corps has a major respon­si­bil­i­ty in pro­vid­ing the peo­ple of Belarus with impar­tial, inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion.

Since the repres­sion esca­lat­ed in the sum­mer of 2020, at least 300 of these 2 000 inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists have left Belarus. They have left their home­land, their col­leagues and fam­i­lies due to threats, cen­sor­ship, arbi­trary arrests, tor­ture, extra­ju­di­cial pros­e­cu­tions and vio­lence.

This is a very dan­ger­ous devel­op­ment.

Work­ing as an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist in Belarus today is very dif­fi­cult. There are those who con­tin­ue to fight for free speech – putting their own and their fam­i­lies’ lives at risk. The hard­er Lukashenko’s snare is tight­ened on the local jour­nal­ist corps, the greater the jour­nal­ists’ deter­mi­na­tion to con­tin­ue doing their jobs seems to become. Against all odds, they are find­ing ways to guard Belarus and we need to do every­thing we can to sup­port them.

Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists face major chal­lenges, even in exile. Since the out­break of the war in Ukraine, after this report was ini­ti­at­ed, Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko, Maria Gritz and Vadim Zamirovs­ki, have been forced to flee once more. Again, they need to restart. This is part­ly about deal­ing with prac­ti­cal tasks such as hous­ing, res­i­dence per­mits and look­ing for work oppor­tu­ni­ties. To rebuild their lives again, from scratch. It is also about pro­cess­ing even­tu­al psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma from the escape and phys­i­cal trau­ma that might have arisen after assault, tor­ture and detains in Belarus. 

Not all jour­nal­ists leav­ing Belarus can con­tin­ue to work as jour­nal­ists. Some switch to com­bin­ing their jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties with oth­er types of assign­ments. Oth­ers are forced to retrain and change careers. This is also a dan­ger­ous devel­op­ment.

If Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists leave their pro­fes­sion, we will not only lose tal­ent­ed col­leagues, we will also lose the oppor­tu­ni­ty for trans­paren­cy. Silenced jour­nal­ists and media put not only everyone’s right to free and inde­pen­dent news cov­er­age out of play, but it also weak­ens democ­ra­cy. When the spot­light falls on the one who abus­es their pow­er, the pres­sure increas­es and we can make demands. When jour­nal­ists are pre­vent­ed from doing their job, this becomes very dif­fi­cult.

That those in pow­er crack down on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism in order to sti­fle it is unfor­tu­nate­ly noth­ing new. It is an effec­tive strat­e­gy to take con­trol and silence both the peo­ple, those who are crit­i­cal against the regime and the oppo­si­tion. There is lit­tle indi­ca­tion that Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko’s grip on Belarus will be released. Rather the oppo­site. Let us there­fore do every­thing we can so that Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists can con­tin­ue to do their job. Only then, will we increase the pres­sure on the regime, only then can we make demands. 

In Belarus, the strug­gle for free­dom is very vis­i­ble. It is embod­ied in the mas­sive protests that swept across the coun­try dur­ing the sum­mer of 2020. It is embod­ied in all the encrypt­ed Telegram mes­sages with infor­ma­tion, videos and pho­tos that the Belaru­sian peo­ple send to the reporters of the inde­pen­dent media. It is embod­ied in the jour­nal­ists striv­ing to con­tin­u­ous­ly and tire­less­ly enlight­en us about the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, in all ways acces­si­ble and from all over the world.  

Arti­cle 19 of the UN Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights reads:

”Every­one has the right to free­dom of opin­ion and expres­sion; this right includes free­dom to hold opin­ions with­out inter­fer­ence and to seek, receive and impart infor­ma­tion and ideas through any media and regard­less of fron­tiers.” 

Free­dom of expres­sion is a human right. Free­dom of opin­ion is a human right. Also inde­pen­dent, impar­tial infor­ma­tion should be a human right. There­fore, we must ensure that the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists can con­tin­ue to report on Belarus – both with­in the coun­try and in exile. We must nev­er allow that Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are silenced.

Siri Hill, board mem­ber Reporters With­out Bor­ders Swe­den.

EPILOGUE

2021 The Year of The Defeat of the Media, forced relo­ca­tion and Ris­ing of Jour­nal­ism from the Ash­es

Last year the inde­pen­dent media in Belarus faced unprece­dent­ed repres­sion. As a result of hun­dreds of search­es and dozens of crim­i­nal cas­es, the major­i­ty of inde­pen­dent media out­lets were smashed and closed. Over three dozen of our col­leagues were forced into cap­tiv­i­ty and around 300 jour­nal­ists had to leave Belarus.

Lead­ing inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions in the coun­try have been declared extrem­ist. This means that one can get a prison sen­tence sim­ply for coop­er­a­tion with the media and even for shar­ing a link with friends and fam­i­ly. The past year is best illus­trat­ed by the door to Radio Liberty’s   office in Min­sk, that was blown up by secu­ri­ty forces dur­ing a search on the 16th of July 2021. Three of the paper’s staff are now in cap­tiv­i­ty and approx­i­mate­ly anoth­er 23 jour­nal­ists too.

But even after such a dev­as­tat­ing cam­paign inde­pen­dent media have found the strength to resume their work. Hun­dreds of jour­nal­ists, flee­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, have gone abroad to restart their media out­lets. With­out the arrest­ed edi­tors. In dif­fi­cult con­di­tions and with­out access to the scene. With destroyed finan­cial mod­els and with phys­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly dam­aged reporters.

But Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism lives on. Today it is pub­lished from Min­sk, War­saw, Vil­nius, Tbil­isi and many oth­er cities and coun­tries. Peo­ple who have lost their home and have had to rebuild their lives. Yet they make hero­ic efforts to cre­ate truth­ful jour­nal­ism of high qual­i­ty and bring it to their audi­ence despite bans and block­ades.

We con­tin­ue to believe that all this is not in vain and that one day we will be able to return to our homes. Unlike the secu­ri­ty forces jour­nal­ists do not use guns, hand­cuffs, stun guns or rub­ber trun­cheons. Our main strength is the truth and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

With deep respect and grat­i­tude,

Barys Haret­s­ki, BAJ Deputy Chair­man.

REPORTS WITHOUT BORDERS SWEDEN’S RECOMMENDATIONS

TO THE AUTHORITIES:

• Res­i­dence per­mit
  Assist the jour­nal­ists in the process of apply­ing for visas and res­i­dence per­mits in the coun­try of exile and let the asy­lum process be per­me­at­ed by speed.
• Psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port
  Offer psy­cho­log­i­cal and med­ical help.

TO ORGANISATIONS:

• Legal help
  Offer legal assis­tance to jour­nal­ists affect­ed by pros­e­cu­tions, fines and ongo­ing legal pro­ceed­ings in their home coun­try.
• Finan­cial help
  Assist the jour­nal­ists finan­cial­ly and com­pen­sate for such things as loss of income, increased costs in con­nec­tion with the escape and con­fis­cat­ed equip­ment. Also sup­port the Belaru­sian news­rooms that have moved their oper­a­tions abroad.

THE JOURNALISTS WISHES:

• SUPPORT BAJ
  Assist the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, which was dis­solved by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties and whose mem­bers are now spread around the world, to con­tin­ue its work for inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists in the coun­try and in exile.
• Polit­i­cal pres­sure
  Grasp every oppor­tu­ni­ty to urge the Belaru­sian regime to stop harass­ing and impris­on­ing jour­nal­ists. All polit­i­cal pris­on­ers must be released and free­dom of the press in Belarus must be restored.
• Do not for­get Belarus!
  Nev­er for­get the jour­nal­ists who are impris­oned or fac­ing long prison sen­tences in Belarus. Tell the world about them, write let­ters to them and say their names out loud at inter­na­tion­al meet­ings, with­in the trade union move­ment and in the news­rooms.

PERSONS INTERVIEWED FOR THIS REPORT:

Iry­na Arakhovskaya, free­lance jour­nal­ist.

Ali­ak­san­dra Dynko, correspondent/Radio Lib­er­ty.

Maria Gritz, reporter Bel­sat News.

Tanya Kapitono­va, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and jour­nal­ist.

Rus­lan Kule­vich, jour­nal­ist.

Han­na Liubako­va, jour­nal­ist and expert, Atlantic Coun­cil.

Natal­lia Lub­neuska­ja, reporter at news­pa­per Nasha Niva.

Zmici­er Mick­iewicz, reporter, Bel­sat TV.

Anton Trafi­movich, free­lance jour­nal­ist

Alexan­der Yaro­she­vich, Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter.

Vadim Zamirovs­ki, pho­to­jour­nal­ist.

Anony­mous jour­nal­ist.

Pic­tures in the report: Vio­let­ta Sav­chits och Tanya Kapitono­va