BAJ launched the project “Journalists: The Silent Mode”

Deter­mined not to let the facts of per­se­cu­tion and repres­sion against jour­nal­ists dis­ap­pear in the infor­ma­tion flow or per­ceived as white noise, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists launched the project “Jour­nal­ists: The Silent Mode.”

BAJ exhi­bi­tion “Jour­nal­ists: The Silent Mode” in War­saw. August 9, 2025. Pho­to: Author

In Belarus, more than forty jour­nal­ists are behind bars.

Their only “crime” is that they car­ried out their work with integrity—gathering and dis­sem­i­nat­ing accu­rate and rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion.

Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s regime has stripped these jour­nal­ists of their free­dom, pro­fes­sion, homes, fam­i­lies, friends, and colleagues—and has thrown them into prison.

Today, they are deprived of the chance to be with their loved ones, raise their chil­dren, care for their par­ents, pur­sue their call­ing, and con­tribute to soci­ety. They are pris­on­ers of con­science. And this is our shared pain.

Kasia Budzko and Kat­siary­na Miats are two Belaru­sian artists who under­stand first-hand what it means to be a jour­nal­ist in Belarus. They have offered  their pecu­liar vision for the project.

Each art­work is accom­pa­nied by a text that reflects the anguish in polit­i­cal pris­on­ers caused by the sud­den depri­va­tion of basic human wor­ries and the inabil­i­ty to access every­day life.

Kasia Budzko’s works present a visu­al return of jour­nal­ists to the real­i­ty they once knew. The artist places their pho­tographs into mod­ern urban landscapes—places where they once lived, loved, worked, and dreamed. The emo­tion­al con­trast between the ordi­nary rhythm of city life and the per­son­al tragedy of each jour­nal­ist restores vis­i­bil­i­ty to those impris­oned. They are in prison—but their pres­ence remains in the life of the city, in the mem­o­ries of peo­ple, and in the his­to­ry of Belarus.

Kat­siary­na Miats’s works are ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing per­son­al whole­ness and human dig­ni­ty. Inspired by the metaphor of a mosa­ic, she shows how a per­son in captivity—isolated and cut off from the world—becomes frag­ment­ed and enclosed. But the vivid, col­or­ful images hold mem­o­ry and offer hope for the return of light to each polit­i­cal prisoner’s life.

The artist also includes the ele­ment of glitch—a tech­no­log­i­cal error that sym­bol­izes the injus­tice of the impris­on­ment itself: for jour­nal­ists, impris­on­ment is a fail­ure of real­i­ty. This effect visu­al­ly empha­sizes the fragili­ty of the con­nec­tion between a per­son and the world from which they’ve been torn. It also under­lines the need to restore the full pic­ture of these people’s lives and ensure their names and sto­ries are not erased.

“Jour­nal­ists: The Silent Mode” is a visu­al act of resis­tance to the silent polit­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy of era­sure. It restores the pres­ence of those whom the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have been try­ing to elim­i­nate from the pub­lic sphere, the pro­fes­sion, and life itself for almost five years.

BAJ’s mis­sion is to give dic­ta­tor­ship zero chance to launch the silent mode.

We will speak, shout, remind, and show this pain to the world—by every means avail­able to us.

We stand for truth! We stand togeth­er!