RSF: Harassment of two journalists is test for international community

Reporters With­out Bor­ders con­demns the way judi­cial author­i­ties in the south­east­ern city of Homyel are hound­ing free­lance jour­nal­ists Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki and Larysa Shchyrako­va and urges the Euro­pean Union to con­di­tion its rap­proche­ment with Belarus on spe­cif­ic progress in respect for media free­dom.

Is Homyel being used a lab­o­ra­to­ry to try out per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists in Belarus? Yes­ter­day a local court ordered Zhuk­ous­ki and Shchyrako­va to pay fines of 7.5 mil­lion rubles (330 euros) for work­ing for an inde­pen­dent media out­let based in a for­eign coun­try.

Both have been repeat­ed­ly fined this year. In all, Zhuk­ous­ki has been fined sev­en times and Shchyrako­va three times. Each of the fines imposed on Zhuk­ous­ki has exceed­ed the aver­age month­ly wage in Belarus, which is 274 euros. If the two jour­nal­ists fail to pay the fines, their homes and pos­ses­sions could be seized.

“Reduc­ing jour­nal­ists to des­ti­tu­tion is a way to destroy them,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia desk. “The lev­el of harass­ment of jour­nal­ists in Homyel is such that it seems to be a test. If the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty does not react, Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko’s regime will assume it has a free hand to per­se­cute jour­nal­ists as it sees fit.”

Zhuk­ous­ki was not allowed to have a defence lawyer dur­ing yesterday’s hear­ing. In protest, he wore a gag when he appeared before the judges and refused to answer their ques­tions.

“It was a farce, not a tri­al,” he told RSF. “[The court] has been giv­en the order to sti­fle jour­nal­ists. Today the police are
after us two. Tomor­row they will hunt down oth­ers if we sur­ren­der.”

Zhuk­ous­ki works main­ly for Bel­sat TV, a TV sta­tion based in Poland. The report that was the sub­ject of yesterday’s hear­ing was about Ukrain­ian refugees in Homyel and a vis­it by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Shchyrako­va also filmed the vis­it but acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed her footage. This did not stop the court from con­vict­ing her as if she had sent the footage to Bel­sat TV. “The judge did not even both­er to ask for proof of my con­tri­bu­tion to the Bel­sat TV report,” she said.

Zhuk­ous­ki and Shchyrako­va are the lat­est vic­tims of the government’s hyp­o­crit­i­cal cen­sor­ship. One the one hand, it bans the main inde­pen­dent broad­cast­ers, forc­ing them to broad­cast from out­side the coun­try. On oth­er, it sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly denies accred­i­ta­tion to the jour­nal­ists who work for them, so that they can be pros­e­cut­ed for “ille­gal­ly pro­duc­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing media con­tent.”

There were no few­er than 28 con­vic­tions on this charge last year, in the run-up to the lat­est pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. This year the harass­ment seems to be con­cen­trat­ing on Homyel.

I appeal to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to defend the prin­ci­ples they pro­claim and to stop liv­ing by dou­ble stan­dards. I do not call for sanc­tions, but con­di­tions must be set for any deal­ings.
Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki

In a bid to over­come a slump in the country’s econ­o­my, the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment is try­ing to improve rela­tions with the Euro­pean Union and to woo inter­na­tion­al donors. The EU set­tled for the release of the lead­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in 2015 in return for lift­ing the tar­get­ed sanc­tions imposed on lead­ing Belaru­sian offi­cials four years ear­li­er.