E‑NEWSLETTER: MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS Bulletin #4(50) (October – December 2016)

MASS MEDIA ANNUAL RESULTS 2016 IN FIGURES

13 – the num­ber of detained jour­nal­ists in 2016.

10 – the num­ber of fines, imposed on free­lance jour­nal­ists for their coop­er­a­tion with for­eign mass media with­out the press cre­den­tials in 2016.

7 – the num­ber of fines, imposed on a free­lance jour­nal­ist Kanstantsin Zhuk­ous­ki (Homiel) for coop­er­a­tion with for­eign mass media in 2016.

EUR 3,500 – the total sum of fines, imposed on free­lance jour­nal­ists for their coop­er­a­tion with for­eign mass media in 2016.

EUR 47 mil­lion – the sum of sub­si­dies to the state-owned mass media from the state bud­get in 2017.

16 – the num­ber of offi­cial warn­ings to mass media (8) and Web-resources (8), issued by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus in 2016.

47 – the num­ber of Web-resources, which were blocked by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus (21 – for dis­trib­ut­ing infor­ma­tion, aimed at sell­ing drugs, 13 – for dis­sem­i­nat­ing the extrem­ist pub­li­ca­tions, 11 – for the faulty adver­tis­ing, 2 – for pro­pa­gan­da of pornog­ra­phy, vio­lence and cru­el­ty) in 2016.

1 – the num­ber of Web-resources, which were unlocked for pub­lic access by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus in 2016.

88 – the num­ber of deci­sions on restrict­ing access to Web-resources, tak­en by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus since 2015, when the Min­istry was enti­tled with the cor­re­spond­ing author­i­ty.

500 – the num­ber of exam­i­na­tions of media prod­ucts, con­duct­ed by the Nation­al Expert Com­mit­tee on Eval­u­a­tion of Mass Media Pro­duc­tion on the Pres­ence / Absence of Signs of Extrem­ism since the Com­mit­tee cre­ation in 2015.

120 – the num­ber of infor­ma­tion­al mate­ri­als, where man­i­fes­ta­tions of extrem­ism have been dis­cov­ered by the Nation­al Expert Com­mit­tee on Eval­u­a­tion of Mass Media Pro­duc­tion on the Pres­ence / Absence of Signs of Extrem­ism.

4 – the num­ber of peo­ple, impris­oned on charges of incit­ing eth­nic or oth­er social hatred or dis­cord in 2016 (see below – Main Events in Mass Media Field in Octo­ber – Decem­ber 2016).

48 – the posi­tion of Belarus in the ‘Free­dom of the Net 2016’ rat­ing list, com­posed by the Free­dom House (the 48^th posi­tion among 65 mon­i­tored coun­tries of the world). Belarus received 62 scores of ‘non-free­dom’. The result is two posi­tions high­er in com­par­i­son with the year of 2015. How­ev­er, despite the slight pro­gres­sive change, the FH still referred to Belarus as a ‘not free’ coun­try as far as the Web free­dom was con­cerned.

MAIN EVENTS IN MASS MEDIA FIELD IN OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2016

The Case of Eduard Palchys

On Octo­ber 28, 2016, Min­sk City Court com­plet­ed its con­sid­er­a­tion of a crim­i­nal case against a blog­ger Eduard Palchys, the founder of 1863х.com Web-site. The judge found him guilty of incit­ing nation­al hos­til­i­ty or dis­cord on the grounds of racial, eth­nic, reli­gious, lin­guis­tic or oth­er social iden­ti­ty (part 1, arti­cle 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus). Also, the blog­ger was accused of dis­sem­i­nat­ing porn mate­ri­als (arti­cle 343 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus). Con­se­quent­ly, E. Palchys was sen­tenced to 1 year and 9 months of restric­tion of lib­er­ty with­out send­ing him to a cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. He was released from cus­tody in the court­room. Tak­ing into account the spent time in a pre-tri­al jail and a med­ical facil­i­ty for foren­sic exam­i­na­tions, the blogger’s term of pun­ish­ment after the tri­al amount­ed to two months only. 

The Web-site 1863х.com was cre­at­ed around two years ago. Its own­er was run­ning the Web-resource anony­mous­ly under a secret iden­ti­ty, as Jhon Sil­ver. He sharply crit­i­cized the so-called ‘Russ­ian world’ and the Russ­ian author­i­ties. The crim­i­nal case against E.Palchys was brought in 2015. Con­se­quent­ly, the blog­ger left Belarus.

In Jan­u­ary 2016, he was detained in Rus­sia, extra­dit­ed to Belarus, and impris­oned in a pre-tri­al deten­tion facil­i­ty in Min­sk.

On August 25, 2016, the Cen­tral City Dis­trict Court of Min­sk found nine pub­li­ca­tions from the 1863х.com Web-site to be extrem­ist ones. The ver­dict was announced dur­ing the closed ses­sion of the court. In par­tic­u­lar, the blog­ger was accused of dis­trib­ut­ing the arti­cles on the Web. On Octo­ber 5, 2016, sev­er­al Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nized him as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Criminal prosecution of ‘Regnum’ authors on charges of inciting ethnic or other social hatred or discord

The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Belarus report­ed on the deten­tion of three cit­i­zens of the Repub­lic of Belarus – Siarhei Shypten­ka, Yury Paulavets, and Dzmit­ry Alimkin – at the begin­ning of Decem­ber 2016. All of them con­tributed pub­li­ca­tions to the ‘Reg­num’ news agency (Rus­sia) and oth­er Russ­ian Web-resources. Crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings were insti­tut­ed against the blog­gers on charges of incite­ment of racial, nation­al, reli­gious or any oth­er social hos­til­i­ty or dis­cord (arti­cle 130 of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code).

Ini­tial­ly, it was report­ed that the case had been filed on part 3 of arti­cle 130 (com­mit­ting crime by a group of peo­ple), pun­ish­able by impris­on­ment for the peri­od of 5–12 years.

Sub­se­quent­ly, the charge was changed to the first part of the same arti­cle 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code, which allows for alter­na­tive forms of pun­ish­ment (a fine, arrest, restric­tion of lib­er­ty for up to five years or impris­on­ment for the same peri­od of time). The insti­tu­tion of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings was ground­ed on the claim, sub­mit­ted by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus. The min­is­te­r­i­al offi­cials accused the blog­gers of incit­ing extrem­ism in their on-line pub­li­ca­tions, fol­low­ing their exam­i­na­tion by the Nation­al Expert Com­mit­tee on Eval­u­a­tion of Mass Media Pro­duc­tion on the Pres­ence / Absence of Signs of Extrem­ism at the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus.

The Belaru­sian pub­lic opin­ion was divid­ed in con­sid­er­a­tion of the fact of deten­tion of ‘Reg­num’ authors. Quite a few peo­ple con­sid­ered the inves­tiga­tive pro­ce­dures as actions in defense of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty. Oth­ers not­ed that the repres­sive actions threat­ened the free­dom of expres­sion in the coun­try.

The ‘Reg­num’ edi­to­r­i­al con­sid­ered the actions of inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties to be ‘provoca­tive and treach­er­ous in rela­tion to Byelorus­sia and Rus­sia’.

Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF) called for the imme­di­ate release of the detained blog­gers. “The posts of these three blog­gers are con­tro­ver­sial but that does not jus­ti­fy their impris­on­ment,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia desk. “Accord­ing to inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, their pro­vi­sion­al deten­tion is nei­ther nec­es­sary nor pro­por­tion­ate.”