OSCE, Reporters Without Borders, EFJ, and other iNGOs react to declaring BAJ extremist formation

The OSCE con­demned anoth­er attack on the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

“It is deeply regret­ful that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ue to cre­ate a cli­mate of harass­ment and fear among and towards mem­bers of the media, delib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ing and sti­fling free and inde­pen­dent voic­es,” said OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media, Tere­sa Ribeiro.

“The deci­sion of the author­i­ties to des­ig­nate BAJ as an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion’ aims to fur­ther under­mine the organization’s impor­tant work of pro­tect­ing and advo­cat­ing for the rights of jour­nal­ists and is the lat­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of the clam­p­down by the author­i­ties on media free­dom in the coun­try.

I have also not­ed with great con­cern the author­i­ties’ pre­vi­ous deci­sions to add Bela­PAN, Nasha Niva, Euro­ra­dio, and oth­er inde­pen­dent media, to the list of ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tions,’” Tere­sa Ribeiro added.

The Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists called on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to stop per­se­cut­ing the orga­ni­za­tions and allow them to work freely:

“By label­ing the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists as ‘extrem­ist,’ Belaru­sian author­i­ties are doing noth­ing but lash­ing out at an orga­ni­za­tion that has already been forced from the coun­try in retal­i­a­tion for its fight for jour­nal­ists’ rights,” said Gul­noza Said, CPJ Europe, and Cen­tral Asia pro­gram coor­di­na­tor, in New York.

“Author­i­ties must stop obstruct­ing BAJ and the Brest­skaya Gaze­ta newspaper’s work and cease using extrem­ism leg­is­la­tion to silence inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism.”

Reporters With­out Bor­ders, an inter­na­tion­al non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, voiced its sup­port on Twit­ter.

“Anoth­er dread­ful and absurd deci­sion in #Belarus: the KGB has declared BAJ an ‘extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion.’ RSF sup­ports its part­ner, tar­get­ed for its essen­tial work in col­lect­ing abus­es against jour­nal­ists despite its dis­so­lu­tion by the regime.”

The Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI) is out­raged by the Belaru­sian regime’s deci­sion. The insti­tu­tion con­sid­ers it a delib­er­ate attack on the media asso­ci­a­tion, forced to oper­ate in exile after the Supreme Court of Belarus liq­ui­dat­ed BAJ in August 2021.

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ue their sys­tem­at­ic effort to silence all inde­pen­dent voic­es they do not already direct­ly con­trol”, said IPI Deputy Direc­tor Scott Grif­f­en.

“Although the deci­sion to declare BAJ an ‘extrem­ist group’ is yet anoth­er in a long series of such attacks on media and civ­il soci­ety, the IPI glob­al net­work strong­ly con­demns this bla­tant act of repres­sion.”

“IPI and our glob­al net­work stand behind BAJ and all inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists inside and out­side Belarus. The extrem­ists in this sit­u­a­tion are not BAJ, but the author­i­tar­i­an pres­i­dent and his secu­ri­ty ser­vices who arbi­trar­i­ly crim­i­nal­ize and per­se­cute jour­nal­ists,” Scott Grif­f­en added.

The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ) whole­heart­ed­ly sup­ports the asso­ci­a­tion and its mem­bers. It recalls that BAJ is a win­ner of the UNESCO World Press Free­dom Prize, so the deci­sion of the Belaru­sian author­i­ties can be con­sid­ered “an obvi­ous act of obstruc­tion to the free­dom of the press.”

“This esca­la­tion of attacks on the media asso­ci­a­tion, adding up to its liq­ui­da­tion by the Supreme Court in August 2021, is one of many attacks on the media since the 2020 mass protests against Lukashenko’s deci­sion to run for the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and fol­low­ing reelec­tion,” the EFJ adds and stress­es:

BAJ, the only inde­pen­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tion of jour­nal­ists and media work­ers in Belarus, has also become the first Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tion to be labeled as ‘extrem­ist’. It will con­tin­ue its activ­i­ties, still from exile, as the ongo­ing crack­down on civ­il soci­ety and the inde­pen­dent press con­tin­ues in the coun­try.

The Belaru­sian dic­ta­tor and his hench­men will have to be held account­able for repeat­ed vio­la­tions of press free­dom and human rights,” said EFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ricar­do Gutiér­rez.

“We call on inter­gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions to increase pres­sure on the Lukashenko regime and to step up sup­port for Belaru­sian democ­rats in exile and in par­tic­u­lar for jour­nal­ists who con­tin­ue to inform the world about human rights vio­la­tions in Belarus,” he said.

Arti­cle 19, an inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to pro­tect and pro­mote free­dom of speech and infor­ma­tion around the world, has expressed its sol­i­dar­i­ty with BAJ.

“ARTICLE 19 strong­ly denounces this bla­tant attack on free speech and fun­da­men­tal rights. This unjus­ti­fied deci­sion presents severe reper­cus­sions – includ­ing crim­i­nal ones – for indi­vid­u­als affil­i­at­ed with the lead­ing press asso­ci­a­tion in the coun­try, and fur­ther quash­es civ­il soci­ety,” human rights activists stress.

“Lukashenko has repeat­ed­ly shown that he has no inten­tion to allow a demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion in Belarus. He and his polit­i­cal camp will not stop at any­thing in their pur­suit to com­plete­ly dis­man­tle civ­il soci­ety and crush free­dom of expres­sion. As an inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, we have a duty to sup­port Belaru­sians and advo­cate for their fun­da­men­tal rights to be respect­ed,” says Joan­na Szy­mańs­ka, Senior Pro­gramme Offi­cer at ARTICLE 19.

ARTICLE 19 “stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with coura­geous mem­bers of the BAJ and salutes their tire­less work to defend free speech and qual­i­ty, reli­able jour­nal­ism.”

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