Statement on the failure of the Belarusian MFA to review applications for accreditation filed by foreign media journalists

Statement on the failure of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review applications for accreditation filed by foreign media journalists.

Cur­rent­ly, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of jour­nal­ists is aware of 25 cas­es when jour­nal­ists from var­i­ous for­eign media have applied to the Belarus’ MFA for tem­po­rary accred­i­ta­tion to work in the coun­try, but received no response with­in a 20-day peri­od set for review of such appli­ca­tions.

As a result, for­eign media jour­nal­ists from these for­eign media out­lets can­not come to Belarus to do their work. Many of them had already cov­ered the events in our coun­try, and had been accred­it­ed by the MFA.

This is a breach of not only the nation­al leg­is­la­tion of Belarus, but also of its oblig­a­tions with­in the frame­work of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions.

The pro­ce­dure of accred­i­ta­tion of for­eign media jour­nal­ists in the Repub­lic of Belarus, approved by the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters on 25.12.2008 pro­vides that appli­ca­tions for per­ma­nent accred­i­ta­tion filed by for­eign media jour­nal­ists are to be reviewed by the MFA’s accred­i­ta­tion com­mis­sion with­in two months, while appli­ca­tions for tem­po­rary accred­i­ta­tion — no lat­er than 20 days from the date of receipt.

Sim­i­lar rules are described in para­graphs 14.8 and 14.9 of the Uni­fied list of admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures car­ried out by state bod­ies and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions as it per­tains to legal enti­ties and indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neurs, approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters of the Repub­lic of Belarus No. 156 of 17.02.2012.

With­in the frame­work of the OSCE, the Repub­lic of Belarus has com­mit­ted favour the fur­ther expan­sion of co-oper­a­tion among mass media and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, espe­cial­ly between the edi­to­r­i­al staffs of press agen­cies, news­pa­pers, radio and tele­vi­sion orga­ni­za­tions as well as film com­pa­nies. 

Our state, just like oth­er OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing States, has made a com­mit­ment to facil­i­tate trav­el by jour­nal­ists from oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing States with­in its ter­ri­to­ry, inter alia by tak­ing con­crete mea­sures where nec­es­sary, to afford them oppor­tu­ni­ties to trav­el more exten­sive­ly.  

The fail­ure to con­sid­er the appli­ca­tions filed by for­eign media jour­nal­ists in time dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in the con­di­tions when the elec­tions will be not mon­i­tored by the OSCE ODIHR, PACE and oth­er rec­og­nized inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, as well as with sig­nif­i­cant restric­tions on domes­tic observers, tes­ti­fies to the refusal of the author­i­ties from hold­ing open and trans­par­ent elec­tions, as enshrined in arti­cle 65 of the Con­sti­tu­tion and arti­cle 13 of the Elec­toral code of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

With this in mind, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists calls on the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Belarus:

-  to con­sid­er all the received appli­ca­tions filed by for­eign media jour­nal­ists and grant accred­i­ta­tion in the short­est time pos­si­ble;

- to stop the prac­tice of not con­sid­er­ing the appli­ca­tions of for­eign media jour­nal­ists;

- to com­ply with the nation­al leg­is­la­tion and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions of the Repub­lic of Belarus in the field of free­dom of speech and the right to infor­ma­tion.