A statement in support of arrested media workers — Justice for Journalists Foundation

Such actions by gov­ern­ments are unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic and vio­late two fun­da­men­tal human free­doms: the right to lib­er­ty (arti­cle 3 of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights) and the right to just and favourable con­di­tions of work(article 23 of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights). 

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, as of June, 8 2021, 33 media work­ers are detained in Belarus. At least 42 Russ­ian and Crimean pro­fes­sion­al and cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists are impris­oned or held under house arrest in Rus­sia and Crimea. All these jour­nal­ists, as well as nine incar­cer­at­ed media work­ers in Uzbek­istan, Turk­menistan and Azer­bai­jan have been deprived of their lib­er­ty just for ful­fill­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties by report­ing objec­tive­ly and inde­pen­dent­ly.  

More infor­ma­tion about attacks on jour­nal­ists, blog­gers and media work­ers is avail­able on JFJ Media Risk Map and in the Inci­dents Data­base.  

Below is a list of media work­ers who cur­rent­ly in pris­ons as of June 8, 2021: 

AZERBAIAJN

1. Polad Aslanov, the edi­tor-in-chief of the Xeber­man and Press-az news web­sites
2. Elchin Mam­madli, edi­tor-in-chief of the Yük­səliş­nam­inə news­pa­per
3. Afgan Sadigov, the head of the online pub­li­ca­tion Azel.Tv
4. Aslan Gur­banov, blog­ger  
5. Elchin Hasan­zade, blog­ger 
6. Ibrahim Turk­soy, blog­ger 

BELARUS 

IN PRISONS AND PRISON CAMPS:

1. Roman Pro­ta­se­vich, ex-edi­tor in chief of social media news chan­nel NEXTA
2. Kat­syary­na Andreye­va, Bel­sat jour­nal­ist 
3. Darya Chultso­va, Bel­sat jour­nal­ist 
4. Yulia Slut­skaya, founder of the Press Club Belarus 
5. Siarhei Alsheusk, direc­tor of the Press Club Belarus
6. Alla Sharko, pro­gram direc­tor of the Press Club Belarus
7. Petr Slut­s­ki, cam­era oper­a­tor of the Press Club Belarus
8. Kse­nia Lut­ski­na, for­mer jour­nal­ist of the state TV chan­nel Belarus 2
9. Andrey Alexan­drov, jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er
10. Denis Ivashin, inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty Inform­Na­palm, col­lab­o­rates with the news­pa­per Novy Chas
11. Andrey Pochobut, jour­nal­ist
12. Lyud­mi­la Chek­ina, gen­er­al direc­tor at TUT.BY
13. Mari­na Zolo­to­va, edi­tor-in-chief at TUT.BY. 
14. Olga Loyko, edi­tor-in-chief at TUT.BY
15. Ele­na Tolka­che­va, TUT.by jour­nal­ist 
16. Alla Lap­atko, chief engi­neer at TUT.BY
17. Maria Novik, deputy chief accoun­tant at TUT.BY
18. Iri­na Rybalko, deputy accoun­tant at TUT.BY  
19. Daria Danilo­va, project man­ag­er at TUT.BY
20. Andrei Avdeed, man­ag­er atTUT.BY
21. Angela Assad, chief accoun­tant at TUT.BY
22. Alexan­der Daine­ka, deputy gen­er­al direc­tor for Tech­ni­cal Affairs at TUT.BY
23. Sergey Poval­i­shev, CEO of Hoster.by
24. Igor Losik, blog­ger, admin­is­tra­tor of Telegram-chan­nel Belam­o­va (Belarus Golovno­go Moz­ga)  
25. Sergey Petrukhin, blog­ger, YouTube chan­nel Nar­o­d­ny Reporter
26. Alexan­der Kabanov, blog­ger, YouTube chan­nel Nar­o­d­ny Reporter
27. Vladimir Tsyganovich, blog­ger, Moz­gON
28. Vladimir Neron­sky. YouTube chan­nel “Slut­sk dlya zhizni” (Slut­sk for Life)
29. Dmit­ry Kozlov, blog­ger “Seryy kot” (Gray Cat) 
30. Sergei Tikhanovsky, YouTube chan­nel Coun­try for Life

UNDER HOUSE ARREST:

1. Yulia Chernyavskaya, wid­ow of the founder of TUT.BY 
2. Eka­te­ri­na Tkachenko, lawyer of TUT.BY
3. Iri­na Kostyuchenko, for­mer lawyer of TUT.BY 

CRIMEA 

IN PRISONS AND PRISON CAMPS:

1. Vladislav Esipenko, free­lancer, Crimea. Real­i­ties, Radio Lib­er­ty
2. Serv­er Mustafayev, coor­di­na­tor, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
3. Seyran Saliev, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
4. Timur Ibrag­i­mov, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
5. Marlen Asanov, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
6. Remzi Bekirov, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty, cor­re­spon­dent for Grani.Ru
7. Rus­lan Suleimanov, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
8. Osman Arifmeme­tov, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
9. Rustem Sheikhaliev, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist, Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty
10. Olek­siy Bessarabov, Deputy Edi­tor-in-Chief of the “Cher­nomorskaya bezopas­nost” mag­a­zine, mem­ber of the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine

UNDER HOUSE ARREST:

1. Amet Suleimanov, stream­er,Crimean Sol­i­dar­i­ty

RUSSIA 

IN PRISONS AND PRISON CAMPS:

1. Niko­lay Babari­ka, blog­ger
2. Alek­san­dr Val­ov, edi­tor-in-chief and founder of local news site Blog­Sochi
3. Vladimir Vorontsov, the founder of the Police Ombuds­man
4. Abdul­mu­min Gadzhiev, reli­gion sec­tion edi­tor of the inde­pen­dent news­pa­per Cher­novik
5. Andrey Deineko, blog­ger
6. Ayrat Dil­mukhame­tov, politi­cian, pub­li­cist
7. Alek­san­dr Doro­gov,  co-deputy chief edi­tor of Ros­derzha­va
8. Pavel Zelen­sky, a cam­era oper­a­tor for Navalny’s Anti-Cor­rup­tion Foun­da­tion (FBK)
9. Ismail Isaev, blog­ger
10. Yan Katelevskiy, Ros­derzha­va co-deputy chief edi­tor
11. Alexan­der Kolomeit­sev, video blog­ger
12. Max­im Lavren­tiev, Ros­derzha­va jour­nal­ist 
13. Kon­stan­tin Lakeev, blog­ger
14. Ivan Lyub­shin, blog­ger
15. Salekh Mag­a­madov, blog­ger
16. Rashid Maysigov, a for­mer jour­nal­ist of news out­let For­t­an­ga
17. Alibek Mirzekhanov, blog­ger
18. Dmit­ry Nadein, video blog­ger
19. Boris Obraztsov, Tride­vy­atyy region
20. Daria Polyu­do­va, blog­ger, polit­i­cal activist
21. Andrei Pyzh, YouTube blog­ger  
22. Ram­ilya Saito­va, activist, blog­ger
23. Zari­fa Sautie­va, a for­mer jour­nal­ist of news out­let For­t­an­ga
24. Ivan Safronov, a for­mer jour­nal­ist of Kom­m­er­sant and Vedo­mosti
25. Ayta­hadzhi Hal­imov, blog­ger 
26. Mali­ka Dzhikae­va, blog­ger

UNDER HOUSE ARREST:

1. Sergey Kamen­sky, blog­ger
2. Armen Aramyan, DOXA
3. Alla Gut­niko­va, DOXA 
4. Vladimir Metelkin, DOXA
5. Natalia Tyshke­vich, DOXA

UZBEKISTAN 

1. Miraz­iz Bazarov, blog­ger 
2. Otabek Sat­toriy, blog­ger 

TURKMENISTAN 

1. Nurgel­di Halykov, free­lance cor­re­spon­dent of Turkmen.News 

The orga­ni­za­tions who signed the state­ment: 

• Jus­tice for Jour­nal­ists Foun­da­tion (Lon­don) 
• Khaled Aghaly – lawyer and spe­cial­ist in media law in Azer­bai­jan
• Com­mit­tee to pro­tect free­dom of expres­sion (Arme­nia) 
• Belaruss­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (Belarus) 
• Oleg Pan­filov – jour­nal­ist and writer. He has won var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al prizes and is a Cav­a­lier of Georgia’s Order of Hon­our (Geor­gia) 
• Inter­na­tion­al Foun­da­tion for pro­tec­tion of free­dom of speech Adil Soz (Kaza­kjs­tan) 
• Human Rights Cen­tre ZMINA (Crimea) 
• School of Peace­mak­ing and Media Tech­nol­o­gy (Kyr­gyzs­tan) 
• Asso­ci­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Press of Moldo­va (API)
•  Turkmen.news (Turk­menistan)  
• Sergei Nau­mov – free­lance jour­nal­ists for Fergana.ru and IWPR (Uzbek­istan) 
• Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists in Ukraine (Ukraine) 
• Asso­ci­a­tion Grani (France)