Media Freedom Coalition statement concerning media freedom in Belarus

Feb­ru­ary 05, 2021 – Ottawa, Ontario – Glob­al Affairs Cana­da

Since the con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was held on August 9, author­i­ties in Belarus have restrict­ed access to infor­ma­tion and have led a bru­tal and sus­tained cam­paign to per­se­cute and harass inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and those from for­eign media orga­ni­za­tions and pre­vent them from per­form­ing the vital role of objec­tive­ly report­ing on events and hold­ing author­i­ties to account. Access to unfet­tered infor­ma­tion is vital for cit­i­zens dur­ing protest. Inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists play a key role in inform­ing cit­i­zens on the caus­es of unrest and state respons­es.

Some 400 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers in Belarus have faced var­i­ous forms of repres­sion in the course of the elec­tion and its after­math. On Jan­u­ary 12, 2021, media con­sul­tant Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau was arrest­ed for alleged­ly pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port to pro­tes­tors.  On Decem­ber 22, mem­bers of the Press Club Belarus were arrest­ed and charged on tax eva­sion. On Jan­u­ary 19, the Belaru­sian courts con­firmed their rule of Decem­ber 3 which rescind­ed the offi­cial media sta­tus of inde­pen­dent news web­site Tut.by, there­by strip­ping its jour­nal­ists of the offi­cial pro­tec­tion they have the right to expect when doing their job. Tut.by jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich remains in cus­tody under crim­i­nal charges of the alleged dis­clo­sure of med­ical secrets of the late Raman Ban­daren­ka, who died after report­ed­ly being beat­en by secu­ri­ty forces.  On Novem­ber 15, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist Yeka­te­ri­na Bakhval­o­va was arrest­ed and had crim­i­nal charges brought against her after film­ing police offi­cers fir­ing stun grenades dur­ing a memo­r­i­al for Raman Ban­daren­ka. Author­i­ties detained anoth­er 23 jour­nal­ists who were cov­er­ing this event.

It is deeply trou­bling that RFE/RL jour­nal­ist Ihar Losik felt the need to go on hunger strike in order to bring atten­tion to his unjust impris­on­ment.  We are relieved Mr. Losik has halt­ed his hunger strike but remain con­cerned about his ongo­ing deten­tion. Sad­ly, this is only one exam­ple of the impact of the author­i­ties’ bla­tant con­tempt for media free­dom.

These are not iso­lat­ed inci­dents but trag­ic exam­ples of the author­i­ties’ wider cam­paign to restrict the fun­da­men­tal free­doms of opin­ion and expres­sion, by vio­lent­ly sup­press­ing peace­ful polit­i­cal protests by oppo­si­tion sup­port­ers and demon­stra­tors. These actions have also been strong­ly con­demned by UN human rights experts and the like­mind­ed inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

We reaf­firm our unequiv­o­cal con­dem­na­tion of the tar­get­ing, harass­ment and deten­tion of jour­nal­ists and media work­ers. We call on Belarus to pro­tect media free­dom, desist from shut­ting down Inter­net access, and respect inter­na­tion­al human rights law. We strong­ly urge Belarus to imple­ment OSCE Moscow Mech­a­nism report rec­om­men­da­tions on free­dom of expres­sion and the media. Polit­i­cal pris­on­ers must be imme­di­ate­ly released. We call on Belarus to release jour­nal­ists and oth­er media work­ers who have been arbi­trar­i­ly detained and hold account­able those respon­si­ble for attacks on jour­nal­ists and media work­ers.

Aus­tria, Bul­gar­ia, Cana­da, Cos­ta Rica, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Esto­nia, Fin­land, France, Ger­many, Greece, Ice­land, Japan, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Lux­em­bourg, Nether­lands, North Mace­do­nia, Switzer­land, Slo­va­kia, Slove­nia, Ukraine, the Unit­ed King­dom, and the Unit­ed States.