Press Freedom Day in unfree country

It their World Press Free­dom Index, Reporters with­out Bor­ders have low­ered Belarus’ rat­ing and described it as «the most dan­ger­ous coun­try in Europe for media per­son­nel».

In Belarus, the media faced with a record num­ber of reprisals in in the last 12 months (the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign was start­ed in May 2020) . We reg­is­tered 516 deten­tions of jour­nal­ists, at least 65 cas­es of vio­lence by secu­ri­ty forces, over 100 admin­is­tra­tive arrests and dozens of search­es in the offices and homes of jour­nal­ists. Dozens of our col­leagues have been forced to leave the coun­try under threat of reprisals.

To date, 11 mem­bers of the media are behind bars:
 Kat­siary­na Andreye­va — 169 days in jail.
Daria Chultso­va — 169 days in jail.
Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich — 165 days in jail.
Yulia Slut­skaya — 132 days in jail.
Ala Sharko — 132 days in jail.
Siarhei Alsheus­ki — 132 days in jail.
Piotr Slut­s­ki — 132 days in jail.
Kse­nia Lut­ski­na — 132 days in jail.
Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau — 111 days in jail.
Dzia­n­is Ivashyn — 52 days in jail.
Andrzej Pac­zobut — 39 days in jail.

All inde­pen­dent news media expe­ri­ence pres­sure on media out­lets and jour­nal­ists. Some are sur­viv­ing in most unfa­vor­able con­di­tions where the very exis­tence of inde­pen­dent media is ques­tion­able.

Nation­al news­pa­per Nar­o­d­naya Volya: since August 2020 it can­not be print­ed in Belarus, a print­ing house in Moscow refused to coop­er­ate with them, too. The read­ers can still find this senior inde­pen­dent news­pa­per online.

Belaru­sian-lan­guage nation­al week­ly Novy Chas: since Feb­ru­ary 2021 the state monop­oly chain «Bel­sayuz­druk» ter­mi­nat­ed  the dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment. Novy Chas is dis­trib­uted by sub­scrip­tion and through the edi­to­r­i­al office.

«Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus»: in August 2020, the Belaru­sian print­ing house can­celled the con­tract, the news­pa­per is now print­ed in Rus­sia. It is not includ­ed in the sub­scrip­tion cat­a­log, and «Bel­sayuz­druk» kiosks don’t sell it either. The news­pa­per is dis­trib­uted in its office and via pri­vate dis­trib­u­tors.

Bel­Gaze­ta: the news­pa­per is not includ­ed in the sub­scrip­tion cat­a­log, it was thrown out of the Bel­sayuz­druk dis­tri­b­u­tion chain, and print­ing hous­es refuse to print it. The read­ers can read it online.

Svo­bod­nye Novosti Plus: the news­pa­per is not includ­ed in the sub­scrip­tion cat­a­log, it was thrown out of the Bel­sayuz­druk dis­tri­b­u­tion chain, and print­ing hous­es refuse to print it. The read­ers can read it online.

Intex-press: in April 2021, this Baranavichy news­pa­per learned it would not be includ­ed in the sub­scrip­tion cat­a­log for the sec­ond half of the year, and will not be sold through the kiosks. Pri­vate dis­trib­u­tors refused to sell the news­pa­per. The edi­to­r­i­al team are per­se­cut­ed for an inter­view with Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya: the arti­cle was rec­og­nized as extrem­ist, and Intex-Press chief edi­tor Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich was fined. The case is not ful­ly over yet.

Brest­skaya Gaze­ta: since Jan­u­ary 2021, the news­pa­per stopped its paper ver­sion. All print­ing press­es refused to print the news­pa­per.

Haze­ta Slonim­skaya: in Novem­ber 2020, the news­pa­per sus­pend­ed pub­lish­ing for six months. On Novem­ber 9, with­out a warn­ing, but with the pros­e­cu­tor’s war­rant, the police searched  the apart­ment of its pub­lish­er Han­na Val­adashchuk and then to the news­room. The police seized all lap­tops and oth­er equip­ment, par­a­lyz­ing the work of the team.  Chief edi­tor Han­na Val­adashchuk was forced to go abroad. The rea­son for the deba­cle was a crim­i­nal case open for libel against one of the Slonim police offi­cers in a local telegram chan­nel.

Brest online mag­a­zine Binoc­u­lars: a crim­i­nal case against the hus­band of its inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er was ini­ti­at­ed.  There were search­es in the office and the pub­lish­er’s home. The work of a pop­u­lar city mag­a­zine has been par­a­lyzed.

Online pub­li­ca­tion Hrodna.life: the office was searched, equip­ment seized. The team and its chief edi­tor received a huge fine for the alleged dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist mate­ri­als.

TUT.BY por­tal was deprived of an «online media» sta­tus. Jour­nal­ists of TUT.By were detained 38 times, five of them spendt short sen­tences in jail, while jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich is serv­ing a crim­i­nal sen­tence.

Bela­PAN news agency: Access to its Naviny.by online news­pa­per has been repeat­ed­ly blocked in Belarus, forc­ing the pub­li­ca­tion to con­stant­ly change its address. In Jan­u­ary, the police searched the office, the equip­ment and doc­u­ments have not been yet returned.

This is not a com­plete list of all the facts of pres­sure on the media. Every day we hear reports of more and more cas­es of fines, arrests, search­es, etc.

Despite this unprece­dent­ed wave of pres­sure, soci­ety stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the inde­pen­dent media, and jour­nal­ists remain com­mit­ted to the pro­fes­sion of their choice. We trust and hope that we will sur­vive in these dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances.

Once again, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists express­es its sol­i­dar­i­ty with all the col­leagues who are com­mit­ted to defend the free­dom of speech.

Jour­nal­ism is not a crime!