BAJ

The num­ber of known cas­es of deten­tion of media work­ers in Belarus has risen sharply to 45 peo­ple. Just last week, it was announced that jour­nal­ists from two more region­al pub­li­ca­tions had been detained.

Next year marks a mile­stone for the BAJ, which cel­e­brates its anniver­sary in exile. “I tru­ly believe in the mis­sion of our orga­ni­za­tion. This is what keeps me going,” says BAJ chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets. In the inter­view, he talks about how the orga­ni­za­tion has grown, shares his thoughts on the Belaru­sian media sec­tor, dis­cuss­es jour­nal­is­tic […]

Ital­ian jour­nal­ist Mas­si­m­il­iano Coc­cia, rep­re­sent­ing the news­pa­per linkiesta.it, has pro­vid­ed spon­sor­ship for Valeryia Kast­si­uho­va, the founder and edi­tor of the expert com­mu­ni­ty web­site Nashe Mne­nie, as well as the edi­tor and author of the Belorussky Ezhe­god­nik and head of the expert mon­i­tor­ing group Belarus in Focus.

On 15 Sep­tem­ber, Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist Andrei Mialesh­ka was denied entry to Geor­gia, where he has lived for the past three years after fac­ing polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion in Belarus. On 17 Sep­tem­ber, Armen­ian jour­nal­ist Arsen Kharatyan, edi­tor-in-chief of an inde­pen­dent non-prof­it bilin­gual Geor­gian-Arme­nia media plat­form Aliq Media based in Tbil­isi, was also denied entry to Geor­gia. The Inter­na­tion­al […]

On Sep­tem­ber 3, the 33rd Eco­nom­ic Forum opened in Karpacz, Poland. Andrei Bas­tunets, chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, was among the speak­ers. He talked about the Belaru­sian press and how it gets influ­enced by Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da.

Dur­ing his trip to Kyiv, Deputy Chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists Barys Haret­s­ki met with Chair­man of the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine Ser­hii Tomilenko.

On August 8, an infor­ma­tion stand was opened in Helsin­ki fea­tur­ing mail­box­es for let­ters to be sent to Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who are behind bars. The mount has been installed in the Media Muse­um Merk­ki.

The Coun­cil of Europe Con­tact Group on Belarus met last week in Stras­bourg to dis­cuss plans for 2024–2025. Atten­dees includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the new­ly elect­ed Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil, the Office of Svi­at­lana Tilhanouskaya, and the Unit­ed Tran­si­tion­al Cab­i­net. The group also includ­ed human rights defend­ers and youth orga­ni­za­tions from the pub­lic sec­tor. The media sec­tor was […]

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) was dis­solved by the author­i­ties in 2021. Quick­ly resum­ing its activ­i­ties abroad, the orga­ni­za­tion con­tin­ues to keep the inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­is­tic community’s atten­tion on the dire state of free­dom of speech in Belarus. Reform.news spoke with BAJ Deputy Chair­man Barys Haret­s­ki about how, despite repres­sion and reduced fund­ing, Belaru­sian media […]