OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media urges immediate and unconditional release of all detained journalists in Belarus

“This sys­tem­at­ic clam­p­down on jour­nal­ists and media work­ers is a gross vio­la­tion of the OSCE com­mit­ments relat­ed to free­dom of expres­sion and media free­dom, vol­un­tary under­tak­en by Belarus as an OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing State,” Ribeiro wrote in a let­ter to Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs Vladimir Makey, request­ing the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of all jour­nal­ists and media work­ers, who have been recent­ly impris­oned, arrest­ed or detained in Belarus.

Ribeiro referred to the recent­ly arrest­ed edi­tor of Telegram chan­nel “Belarus golovno­go moz­ga,” Raman Prata­se­vich, and to dozens of oth­er jour­nal­ists and media pro­fes­sion­als, includ­ing the ones on a list com­piled by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists: https://baj.media/en/analytics/repressions-against-journalists-belarus-2021-chart

The OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Media Free­dom fur­ther stat­ed that these repres­sive mea­sures have a chill­ing effect, by deter­ring oth­ers from con­tin­u­ing their work with­out fear of reprisal, lead to self-cen­sor­ship, and affect the abil­i­ty of inde­pen­dent media to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic. “Free­dom to receive and impart infor­ma­tion and ideas with­out inter­fer­ence by pub­lic author­i­ty regard­less of fron­tiers, includ­ing through for­eign media, is para­mount for a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety and is one of the basic con­di­tions for its progress and devel­op­ment,” Ribeiro said.

The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive not­ed the reports that some of those jour­nal­ists behind bars had their human rights infringed, includ­ing through arbi­trary sur­veil­lance tech­niques, beat­ings, denial of time­ly legal or con­sular aid, by forced tes­ti­mo­ni­als of guilt, tar­get­ed “leaks” and smear cam­paigns under­min­ing integri­ty of their work. “All recent cas­es of vio­lence by the police against inde­pen­dent media work­ers in the coun­try have to be ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed,” she said. “It is urgent­ly need­ed that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties put an end to the cur­rent cli­mate of impuni­ty regard­ing vio­lence against jour­nal­ists.”