«Banned Texts» of Belarusian journalists echoed in Sweden

Swedish writ­ers and jour­nal­ists have expressed their sol­i­dar­i­ty with impris­oned Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. In Octo­ber, a sol­i­dar­i­ty event titled «Cen­sor­ship in Belarus – Banned Texts» took place in Malmö, Swe­den, orga­nized by the PEN Club and the Daw­it Isaak Library as part of a week of sup­port for banned cul­ture.

Par­tic­i­pants in the sol­i­dar­i­ty action «Cen­sor­ship in Belarus – Banned Texts» posed for pho­tos hold­ing por­traits of impris­oned Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. Pho­to: Osa Ols­son.

The event fea­tured free­lance jour­nal­ist Åsa Ohls­son, who informed par­tic­i­pants about the media sit­u­a­tion in Belarus and pro­vid­ed exam­ples of cen­sored mate­ri­als. She spoke about impris­oned mem­bers of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists in exile. 

Jour­nal­ists Mar­gare­ta Fly­gt, Moa Skimutis, and Tor­b­jörn Hall­gren read arti­cles from the list of banned mate­ri­als, as well as texts describ­ing the lives of their col­leagues on both sides of the Belaru­sian bor­der. 

As of Octo­ber 25, 36 media work­ers are behind bars. 

This is not the first act of sol­i­dar­i­ty by Swedish jour­nal­ists with Belaru­sian media work­ers. In ear­ly March, an event called «Echo­ing the Voic­es of Women» was held at an art muse­um in Malmö to high­light impris­oned female jour­nal­ists from Belarus. With the sup­port of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the Malmö PEN Club spoke about nine media women who are cur­rent­ly impris­oned and also shared quotes from the final state­ment in court of Iry­na Leushy­na, edi­tor-in-chief of the Bela­PAN agency.

In Novem­ber, fur­ther sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are planned in Malmö under the title «Open Word in Times of Silence». They will be orga­nized by a net­work that facil­i­tates exchanges between the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) and the Swedish Union of Jour­nal­ists (SJF), togeth­er with the PEN Club.

BAJ calls on jour­nal­ists around the world to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty action! You can print por­traits of impris­oned Belaru­sian media work­ers, take pic­tures with them in out­stand­ing places in your city (out­side Belarus), and post them on social media using the hash­tags #СвабодуЖурналістам and #BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist. Don’t for­get to send them to office@baj.media or intercomm@baj.media.