BAJ Representatives Discuss Main Problems of Media Freedom in Belarus with OSCE

They dis­cussed the biggest chal­lenges for media free­dom in Belarus: restric­tive amend­ments to the media law, crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists and edi­tors (BelTA case), per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists for their coop­er­a­tion with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion, etc.

Chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists Andrei Bas­tunets stressed that the prob­lem was not only in extreme­ly restric­tive media leg­is­la­tion, but also in the arbi­trari­ness of the civ­il ser­vants.

- 2018 has been one of the worst years for inde­pen­dent media. It was the year of crim­i­nal charges against 15 jour­nal­ists in BelTA case, which have even­tu­al­ly been dropped, while chief edi­tor of TUT.BY Mary­na Zolata­va still remains under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion; of pres­sure on the jour­nal­ists who coop­er­ate with for­eign media, to name a few.

A year ago, I said, in 2017, the num­ber of fines for alleged coop­er­a­tion with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion was high­er than dur­ing the three pre­vi­ous years alto­geth­er. I am afraid that we will be able to say that in 2018 the num­ber of fines is high­er than the total num­ber of fines dur­ing all the pre­vi­ous years, includ­ing 2017, — says Andrei Bas­tunets.

The jour­nal­ists also touched upon issues of crim­i­nal­iza­tion of defama­tion in Belarus, the struc­ture of the Belaru­sian media mar­ket, the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion of the Belaru­sian media in chang­ing media mar­ket and con­sump­tion, obsta­cles for access to infor­ma­tion by jour­nal­ists of nation­al and region­al media, etc.

The OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media Harlem Désir expressed his sup­port to Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists and not­ed the high lev­el of coop­er­a­tion between his Office and the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, which reg­u­lar­ly informs the OSCE on the sit­u­a­tion of media free­dom in Belarus.