BAJ won the first Canada-UK Media Freedom Award

BAJ was sin­gled out for its ongo­ing com­mit­ment to jour­nal­is­tic ethics and prin­ci­ples and its per­se­ver­ance and self-sac­ri­fice in the face of increased tar­get­ed crack­downs on media in Belarus.

The announce­ment was made joint­ly dur­ing this year’s Glob­al Con­fer­ence for Media Free­dom, held vir­tu­al­ly on Novem­ber 16, 2020, and host­ed by Cana­da and Botswana.

“It is vital that jour­nal­ists, wher­ev­er they work in the world, can shine a light on what is going on, with­out fear of retal­i­a­tion, cen­sor­ship or pun­ish­ment,” said Dominic Raab, Sec­re­tary of State for For­eign Affairs of the Unit­ed King­dom. “I pay trib­ute to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists for their ded­i­ca­tion to report­ing human rights and elec­toral fraud in the face of vio­lence, threats and intim­i­da­tion. The work of those who defend media free­doms has nev­er been more impor­tant.”

“At a time when media free­dom is increas­ing­ly under attack, we com­mend the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists as it fights to pro­tect the rights and free­doms, lives and liveli­hoods of media pro­fes­sion­als in that coun­try,” added François-Philippe Cham­pagne, Cana­di­an Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs. “Its ongo­ing efforts to counter repres­sion and dis­in­for­ma­tion ensure the voic­es of jour­nal­ists and cit­i­zens are heard, and mat­ter, when it counts the most.”

“It is a great hon­our for the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists to receive this award,” react­ed Andrei Bas­tunets, Chair­per­son of BAJ. “We regard this award as a high appraisal of the work of our col­leagues, who every day hon­est­ly cov­er events in Belarus, risk­ing their free­dom and health. Today, jour­nal­ists in Belarus have to work under gun­fire, lit­er­al­ly, in a peace­ful coun­try. They are vic­tims of police vio­lence and are sen­tenced to long-term arrests for their work. We thank every voice in the world that speaks out for Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists today! This is very impor­tant for our col­leagues who remain impris­oned.”

22 jour­nal­ists still detained in Belarus

In addi­tion to this inter­na­tion­al event, the EFJ joined the appeal launched today by the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine (NUJU) and the Pol­ish Jour­nal­ists’ Asso­ci­a­tion (SDP) to demand the imme­di­ate release of the 22 jour­nal­ists cur­rent­ly detained in Belarus.

′′Don’t beat me! I am a jour­nal­ist!” This is the title of the joint appeal launched today by SDP and NUJU. The joint appeal relays a series of detailed sto­ries from Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists about the cir­cum­stances of their bru­tal arrests. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) has doc­u­ment­ed 360 arbi­trary deten­tions of jour­nal­ists who were just doing their job since the fraud­u­lent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on 9 August.

One of the wit­ness­es cit­ed by NUJU and SDP is BELSAT TV cor­re­spon­dent Cata­ri­na Andree­va. On Sun­day 15 Novem­ber, she was arrest­ed in the course of her pro­fes­sion­al duties for cov­er­ing demon­stra­tions in Min­sk.

“I am con­stant­ly advised to leave Belarus and take refuge in Poland or Lithua­nia, at least tem­porar­i­ly,” she said. “The ques­tion is: how long am I pre­pared to con­tin­ue work­ing in a sit­u­a­tion where the space of free­dom is shrink­ing by the hour? I don’t know, I don’t have an answer. But I am sure of one thing: there are peo­ple in Belarus who have been going out to demon­strate for four months with a white-red-white flag and flow­ers. That means we have to show them on Bel­sat”…

The EFJ joins SDP and NUJU in demand­ing the release of Cata­ri­na Andree­va and the 21 oth­er jour­nal­ists in deten­tion in Belarus.