The authorities are trying to destroy independent journalism in Belarus. Support the Solidarity Marathon!

State­ment of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

The author­i­ties of Belarus con­tin­ue their bru­tal attack on jour­nal­ists and the media, effec­tive­ly putting inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism with­in the coun­try on the verge of destruc­tion.

Just recent­ly, secu­ri­ty forces searched the edi­to­r­i­al offices and apart­ments of jour­nal­ists of region­al pub­li­ca­tions Info-Kuri­er (Slut­sk) and Rehiyanal­naya Haze­ta (Mal­adzech­na), equip­ment and doc­u­ments were tak­en, and the edi­tors of the pub­li­ca­tions were put behind bars. As a result, two more region­al media were forced to sus­pend their work.

On the eve of the Free­dom of the Press Day, the Intex-press pub­li­ca­tion (Baranavichy) came under per­se­cu­tion, the mate­ri­als of its web­site and social net­works were rec­og­nized by the author­i­ties as extrem­ist on April 29. And a nation­al pub­li­ca­tion Nar­o­d­naya Volya was forced to sus­pend the pub­li­ca­tion of their PDF ver­sion due to the eco­nom­ic block­ade.

As of the morn­ing of May 3, 2023, 33 rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media are in pris­ons and deten­tion cen­ters in Belarus.

In sup­port of our col­leagues, BAJ announces the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Marathon action. As a reminder to the whole world that free speech is being destroyed in Belarus and jour­nal­ists are pay­ing with their free­dom for doing their job hon­est­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

The action sym­bol­i­cal­ly starts on May 3. BAJ orga­nizes it in Vil­nius joint­ly with the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists. We remind the Belaru­sian author­i­ties: jour­nal­ists are not crim­i­nals. There can be no free soci­ety with­out a free press. We demand the release of our col­leagues!

We call on jour­nal­is­tic and human rights orga­ni­za­tions of the world, well-known pub­lic fig­ures to join the action and use their author­i­ty to influ­ence the release of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists.

BAJ calls on col­leagues all over the world to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty action!

You can print por­traits of impris­oned col­leagues, take pic­tures with them in rec­og­niz­able places of your city and pub­lish them on social media with the tags #СвабодуЖурналістам and #BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist, and also send us to baj@baj.by.

#СвабодуЖурналістам
#BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist

Belarusian media workers behind bars. Portraits