Press Club Belarus founder wins World Press Freedom Hero award

This year’s award cer­e­mo­ny is expect­ed to take place in Vien­na, Aus­tria, on Sep­tem­ber 16.

Com­ment­ing on the award, Ms. Sluck­a­ja said that she was “very grate­ful” for the appre­ci­a­tion of her con­tri­bu­tion to uphold­ing the val­ues of free­dom of speech.

“I ask you to remem­ber that this is only pos­si­ble due to the ded­i­cat­ed work of the entire Press Club team and the hun­dreds of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who remain faith­ful to their val­ues in high­ly chal­leng­ing con­di­tions,” the IPI quot­ed Ms. Sluck­a­ja as say­ing. “I would also like to thank you for keep­ing Belarus in the focus of the world media. This in itself gives me hope that I will soon be able to embrace all my cur­rent­ly impris­oned col­leagues.”

IPI Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Bar­bara Tri­on­fi said Ms. Sluck­a­ja embod­ied the val­ues that the Hero award rep­re­sents.

“Over the course of her career, Yuliya Slut­skaya [Juli­ja Sluck­a­ja] – despite work­ing in one of the world’s most repres­sive media envi­ron­ments and at the expense of her own free­dom – has stead­fast­ly defend­ed the val­ue of qual­i­ty, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism,” Ms. Tri­on­fi said. “We are proud to rec­og­nize Yuliya’s brav­ery and her immense con­tri­bu­tions to the jour­nal­is­tic pro­fes­sion in Belarus. IPI mem­bers around the world stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Yuliya and her col­leagues at the Press Club Belarus, and with all oth­er jour­nal­ists in the coun­try tar­get­ed by the regime. We repeat our demand for the release of all jailed jour­nal­ists in Belarus and an imme­di­ate end to the crack­down.”

Ms. Sluck­a­ja and three employ­ees of Press Club Belarus were released from cus­tody on August 19, almost eight months after their arrest.

Ms. Sluck­a­ja, a promi­nent jour­nal­ist, as well as cam­era­man Piotr Sluc­ki, who is her son, Press Club Belarus Direc­tor Siarhiej Aĺšeŭs­ki and Pro­gram Direc­tor Ala Šarko were freed from a deten­tion cen­ter in Min­sk after being par­doned by Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašen­ka.

The four per­sons and Sergei Yakupov, pro­gram direc­tor at the organization’s edu­ca­tion­al cen­ter for jour­nal­ists, were arrest­ed on Decem­ber 22, 2020.

Days lat­er, Ms. Sluck­a­ja was charged with tax eva­sion while Ms. Šarko and Messrs. Aĺšeŭs­ki and Sluc­ki were charged with facil­i­tat­ing tax eva­sion. Mr. Yakupov, a Russ­ian cit­i­zen, was released with­out a charge and deport­ed to Rus­sia.