Wall of silence in Belarus: massive withdrawal of press accreditations

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) has drawn up a list of jour­nal­ists whose accred­i­ta­tion has been with­drawn:

1. Ilia Kuz­ni­at­sou, ARD;
2. Sergey Sergeyev, ARD;
3. Mikhail Fomin, ARD;
4. Tatyana Mel­nichuk, BBC;
5. Tatyana Yanut­se­vich, BBC;
6. Ales Dashchin­sky, RFE/RL;
7. Oleg Gruzdilovich, RFE/RL;
8. Vladimir Gridin, RFE/RL;
9. Alek­san­dra Dynko, RFE/RL;
10. Vasi­ly Fedosenko, Reuters;
11. Uladz­imir Kostsin, Reuters;
12. Sergey Gapon, AFP;
13. Ali­axan­dr Grabenkin, AFP;
14. Yuras Kar­manau, AP;
15. Siarhei Gryts, AP;
16. Gen­nady Sharip­kin, RFi;
17. Raman Vasukovich, Currenttime.tv.

The mem­bers of ARD TV team, Ilia Kuz­ni­at­sou, Sergey Sergeyev and Mikhail Fomin, were detained in Min­sk and spent the night at the police depart­ment. They were accused of “active par­tic­i­pa­tion in the mass action” and deprived of accred­i­ta­tion “in order to ensure the infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty of the coun­try”. Sergeyev and Fomin were deport­ed to Rus­sia and banned from trav­el­ling to Belarus for 5 years.

“It is of great con­cern that jour­nal­ists work­ing for inter­na­tion­al media are mas­sive­ly denied press accred­i­ta­tion. Accred­i­ta­tion should not serve as a tool to con­trol con­tent or restrict the flow of infor­ma­tion,” said EFJ Pres­i­dent Mogens Blich­er Bjer­regård. “Accred­i­ta­tion refusals and with­drawals are extreme mea­sures and should not be serve as sanc­tions for pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties or con­tent. The EFJ calls on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to rein­state these press accred­i­ta­tions and to issue accred­i­ta­tion to any for­eign jour­nal­ist trav­el­ing to Belarus to cov­er the protests relat­ed to the elec­toral fraud and police vio­lence.”

“Calls for dia­logue by the Euro­pean Union and the Organ­i­sa­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Co-oper­a­tion in Europe (OSCE) are no longer enough,” added EFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ricar­do Gutiér­rez. “We call on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to take action: the EU has still not imple­ment­ed the promised sanc­tions against those respon­si­ble for elec­toral fraud and police vio­lence, and the OSCE has still not sent an expert mis­sion to Belarus to inves­ti­gate human rights vio­la­tions. Through its iner­tia and silence, the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is com­plic­it in the repres­sion of the Belaru­sian peo­ple.”