Belarusian Association of Journalists demands to release reporters and review their cases. Statement

11 and 12 May courts of Mahilou and Hly­bokaye sen­tenced reporters, BAJ mem­bers, Ales Asipt­sou, Mikhail Arshyn­s­ki, Alexan­der Burak­ou and Zmitser Lupach to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rized protests that they had been cov­er­ing.

Numer­ous sen­tences of arrest were passed on blog­gers and even peo­ple who had been inter­viewed by jour­nal­ists and blog­gers.

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists strong­ly protests against pros­e­cu­tion of its mem­bers.

Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus «On Mass Media» enti­tles jour­nal­ists to be present at mass events, in emer­gency areas, at places of social­ly impor­tant events and pass on infor­ma­tion from there. Thus, the jour­nal­ists had the right to be present at the events and per­form their work there.

Pros­e­cu­tion of col­leagues for per­for­mance of their pro­fes­sion­al duties draws a strong protest in the jour­nal­ists’ com­mu­ni­ty. We believe the use of admin­is­tra­tive arrest as a penal­ty dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is espe­cial­ly cyn­i­cal as it puts the health of the jour­nal­ists at seri­ous risk.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists calls for an urgent review of the admin­is­tra­tive cas­es of the jour­nal­ists and oth­er per­sons who have been pros­e­cut­ed for express­ing their opin­ion, and for their imme­di­ate release.