BAJ protests over arrests and court rulings against journalists

The tri­als were held in total dis­re­gard of the fair tri­al stan­dards.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of jour­nal­ists is out­raged by the court rul­ings and the way they were issued. Equat­ing jour­nal­ists with pro­test­ers is unac­cept­able and defies the norms of law.

The laws on Mass Media and on Mass Events in the Repub­lic of Belarus enti­tle jour­nal­ists to attend mass events.  In full com­pli­ance with these laws, the detained and pros­e­cut­ed jour­nal­ists wore PRESS badges and vests, and had press IDs with them.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists draws atten­tion to the fact that Min­is­ter of Inter­nal Affairs Yury Karayeu has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that it is unac­cept­able to inter­fere with the work of jour­nal­ists: «I have always spo­ken against any forms of vio­lence against jour­nal­ists. I sup­port civ­i­lized cov­er­age of events. The press is sacred. What­ev­er [the jour­nal­ist], one can’t touch them.» How­ev­er, in prac­tice, these words are either ignored or dis­agree with the real instruc­tions to the offi­cers.

We demand to:

- stop vio­la­tions of the rights of jour­nal­ists and mass media, and even more so, vio­lence against jour­nal­ists, as well as peace­ful pro­test­ers;

- recon­sid­er these court rul­ings and pun­ish those who imped­ed the work of jour­nal­ists.