Free speech in Belarus: fighting for the truth in a climate of oppression (15th June)

After the bru­tal crack­down on all inde­pen­dent voic­es in 2020, Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media rep­re­sen­ta­tives were sub­ject­ed to arrests, fines, search­es and inter­ro­ga­tions. The author­i­ties blocked more than 3,000 online resources, while most inde­pen­dent print media were banned from dis­trib­ut­ing their mate­ri­als.

Dozens of media organ­i­sa­tions and hun­dreds of jour­nal­ists were forced to relo­cate. 33 jour­nal­ists are cur­rent­ly impris­oned. Fol­low­ing the forced land­ing of a Ryanair flight and con­se­quent arrest of NEXTA co-founder Roman Pro­ta­se­vich and Russ­ian blog­ger Sophia Sape­ga, Belarus saw the tight­en­ing of West­ern sanc­tions in response to this assault on free­dom.

Despite the pres­sure direct­ed against them, Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media out­lets con­tin­ue their work pro­vid­ing high-qual­i­ty objec­tive infor­ma­tion, which remains key in the fight against state pro­pa­gan­da and dis­in­for­ma­tion from both Russ­ian and Belaru­sian state media.

The Hen­ry Jack­son Soci­ety wel­comes you to a report launch event on attacks against media rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Belarus in 2011–2022, pro­duced by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) and Jus­tice for Jour­nal­ists Foun­da­tion (JFJ). The speak­ers will present the main find­ings of the report, includ­ing Alek­sander Lukashenka’s attacks on the free media and the sit­u­a­tion with free­dom of speech in oth­er post-Sovi­et autoc­ra­cies. We shall also dis­cuss the role the UK and oth­er Euro­pean insti­tu­tions can play in sup­port­ing Belaru­sian media.

REGISTER TO ATTEND

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

“For them, the events in our region are a conflict between Russia and satellite countries.” Belarusian journalist talks about visiting South Korea

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