BELARUS 2022 – 2023. HUMAN RIGHTS. CIVIL SOCIETY. MASS MEDIA

HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION AND PRESSURE ON CIVIL SOCIETY. REVIEW

SITUATION IN MASS MEDIA FIELD

ACTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

LIST OF SOURCES

HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION AND PRESSURE ON CIVIL SOCIETY. REVIEW

Sit­u­a­tion in the Field of Human Rights

Repres­sions against the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, civ­il soci­ety and the media do not stop in the coun­try, despite the fact that more than three years have passed since the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in Belarus and the sup­pres­sion of mass protests caused by their fal­si­fi­ca­tion and the use of vio­lence against pro­test­ers. The human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus has fur­ther dete­ri­o­rat­ed after the begin­ning of full-scale mil­i­tary aggres­sion of Rus­sia against Ukraine, sup­port­ed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties.

It was reflect­ed in reports and index­es of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and struc­tures. Thus, in par­tic­u­lar, Belarus dropped by four points in the 2023 Press Free­dom Index, pub­lished by Reporters with­out Bor­ders on May 3, 2023, hold­ing the 157th posi­tion in the list of 180 coun­tries.

At the same time, as it was stat­ed in Res­o­lu­tion No.59 of the first UN Ses­sion back in the year of 1946, free­dom of infor­ma­tion is a fun­da­men­tal human right. It rep­re­sents the bench­mark of all free­doms that the Unit­ed Nations is com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing. The sit­u­a­tion in Belarus proves this.

The UN High Com­mis­sion­er on Human Rights con­clud­ed in his report on the Sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus in the run-up to the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and in its after­math, pre­sent­ed on 3 Feb­ru­ary 2023, that that “sys­tem­at­ic, wide­spread and gross human rights vio­la­tions have been and are being com­mit­ted in Belarus.”

Among oth­er, the fol­low­ing vio­la­tions were out­lined in this report:

·Unnec­es­sary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate use of force

·Tor­ture and oth­er cru­el, inhu­mane, or degrad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment

·Arbi­trary arrest and deten­tion

·Rights to due process and a fair tri­al

·Free­doms of expres­sion, peace­ful assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion

·Sex­u­al and gen­der-based vio­lence

·Child sep­a­ra­tion and undue inter­fer­ence in fam­i­ly life

·Forced exile

The UN High Com­mis­sion­er not­ed in his report that accord­ing to offi­cial sta­tis­tics, more than 11,000 crim­i­nal cas­es relat­ed to extrem­ism were filed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties with­in the peri­od from August 2020 till July 2022. “The author­i­ties applied the con­cept of “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” to tar­get hun­dreds of social media groups and chan­nels and pri­vate chats. Most inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian media out­lets are con­sid­ered “extrem­ist” by the author­i­ties, includ­ing hun­dreds of social media chan­nels and blogs. OHCHR found that such an expan­sive con­cept of “extrem­ism” was incom­pat­i­ble with the prin­ci­ple of legal­i­ty and that domes­tic extrem­ism and counter-ter­ror­ism laws were used to sup­press dis­sent.”

Anaïs Marin, the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Belarus pre­sent­ed her report on the Sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus on May 3, 2023. She drew pub­lic atten­tion (par. 108) to fur­ther amend­ments to the already restric­tive domes­tic leg­is­la­tion on human rights. The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur expressed regret (par. 3) that the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment with­rdrew from the first Option­al Pro­to­col to the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights. Appar­ent­ly, it was the last inter­na­tion­al legal doc­u­ment giv­ing the right to Belaru­sian cit­i­zens to chal­lenge vio­la­tions of their civ­il and polit­i­cal rights by the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment in supra­na­tion­al courts.

More­over, she stood up against the poli­cies of Belaru­sian author­i­ties, aimed at elim­i­nat­ing civ­il space in the coun­try, and the con­stant­ly increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple, who are sen­tenced on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges: “The envi­ron­ment of impuni­ty for human rights vio­la­tions and fear has led the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, civic activists, intel­lec­tu­als, and many ordi­nary peo­ple into exile.”

The “Vias­na” Human Rights Cen­ter, whose lead­ers have been sen­tenced to long terms of impris­on­ment (includ­ing Ales Bialats­ki, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize win­ner), notes that a deep human rights cri­sis con­tin­ues to deter­mine the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus. Accord­ing to “Vias­na”, there were reg­is­tered 1,490 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in prison in Belarus at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2023. At the same time, about 1,200 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers have been set free since 2020 due to the com­ple­tion of their prison terms, changes in pre­ven­tive mea­sures, impo­si­tion of non-cus­to­di­al sen­tences, or due to par­dons.

A soci­ol­o­gist Henadz Kor­shu­nau, for­mer direc­tor of the Insti­tute of Soci­ol­o­gy at the nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Belarus says that the repres­sions have reached “some kind of plateau”. Accord­ing to him, first of all “such thoughts come to his mind due to the obser­va­tion of month­ly dynam­ics of the num­ber of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Their num­ber has fluc­tu­at­ed at +/- 1,500 peo­ple for five months since April 2023. This means that the num­ber of peo­ple, who are sent to prison and the num­ber of peo­ple, who are released from places of deten­tion is the same. […] Anoth­er fac­tor is deter­mined by the dynam­ics of deten­tions for polit­i­cal rea­sons, which are known to the pub­lic […] If we talk about aver­age val­ues, around 365–370 peo­ple were detained per month over the last 12 months and around 360 – 365 peo­ple were detained per month over the last 8 months. The third point is the month­ly num­ber of peo­ple con­vict­ed for polit­i­cal rea­sons […]. More­over, he has empha­sized that the dynam­ics of adding peo­ple to the so-called “list of extrem­ists” demon­strates a fair­ly clear bar — +/- 100 peo­ple per month (115 peo­ple per month on aver­age dur­ing 8 months of the cur­rent year). At the same time, it is not pos­si­ble to count on a decrease in repres­sive pres­sure, since the offi­cial posi­tion of the author­i­ties that is artic­u­lat­ed by secu­ri­ty forces at var­i­ous lev­els is as fol­lows: “The repres­sions will not stop!”

The Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee draws pub­lic atten­tion to such trends in the first half-year 2023 as the appli­ca­tion of incom­mu­ni­ca­do meth­ods (depri­va­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion) in rela­tion to a num­ber of pub­lic polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, the first pub­licly known open crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of a lawyer for pro­vid­ing legal assis­tance to his clients, the first sen­tences in absen­tia (tri­als in absen­tia), the first sen­tence for “Belaru­sian nation­al­ism.”

Pres­sure on civ­il soci­ety

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly imple­ment­ing plans to purge civ­il soci­ety and the media. The inten­tions have been reg­u­lar­ly artic­u­lat­ed by Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka since the fall of 2020.

Thus, dur­ing anoth­er per­son­nel meet­ing on Octo­ber 20, 2020, he promised to find and pun­ish all pro­test­ers: “We will calm­ly find every­one. Mod­ern tech­niques allow us to do this, and we are deal­ing with all this by the way. And every­one will answer for their actions. I’m not threat­en­ing here. We are work­ing in this direc­tion. And it brings cer­tain results.»

In Novem­ber 2021, a British jour­nal­ist for BBC News Stephen Rosen­berg not­ed dur­ing an inter­view with Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka that 270 NGOs had recent­ly been liq­ui­dat­ed in Belarus.^[1] Lukashen­ka respond­ed, «We’ll mas­sacre all the scum that you [the West] have been financ­ing. Oh, you’re upset we’ve destroyed all your struc­tures! Your NGOs, what­ev­er they are, that you’ve been pay­ing for. We did­n’t touch peo­ple who worked for the good of Belarus, who helped peo­ple. But the peo­ple who used your assis­tance, got fund­ing from you and smashed up every­thing here… your peo­ple you saw here in Min­sk. If we haven’t liq­ui­dat­ed them already, we will do so in the near future.»

How­ev­er, the orga­ni­za­tions that had noth­ing to do with human rights or social activ­i­ties, e.g., pro­tect­ing ani­mal rights, bird watch­ing, cycling soci­eties, etc., were also purged. And the major­i­ty of tar­get­ed orga­ni­za­tions was of this kind.

The UN High Com­mis­sion­er on Human Rights not­ed in his report that “by Decem­ber 2022, the num­ber of liq­ui­dat­ed non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions reached 757, and 416 orga­ni­za­tions made the dif­fi­cult deci­sion to close in order to avoid poten­tial crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. These sta­tis­tics include vir­tu­al­ly all human rights groups work­ing in the coun­try. Since Jan­u­ary 2022, an amend­ment to the Crim­i­nal Code pro­vides that a per­son tak­ing part in activ­i­ties of an unreg­is­tered orga­ni­za­tion or one that has been liq­ui­dat­ed, faces a sen­tence of two years’ impris­on­ment.”

The “Lawtrend” NGO has not­ed that the num­ber of liq­ui­dat­ed non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions con­tin­ues to grow in Belarus. As of the end of August 2023, at least 900 non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions were in the process of forced liq­ui­da­tion or forcibly exclud­ed from the Uni­fied State Reg­is­ter of Legal Enti­ties and Indi­vid­ual Entre­pre­neurs (USR). The num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions that decid­ed to ter­mi­nate their activ­i­ty amount­ed to no less than 507 legal enti­ties at the end of August. The liq­ui­da­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties con­tin­ued. “Thus, the loss­es in the pub­lic sec­tor of Belarus, start­ing from the post-elec­tion peri­od of 2020, amount to no less than 1,407 insti­tu­tion­al­ized forms of non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions (pub­lic asso­ci­a­tions, trade unions, polit­i­cal par­ties, foun­da­tions, non-gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions and asso­ci­a­tions).”

The Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee regards the ongo­ing process­es as “nation­al­iza­tion” of civ­il soci­ety: “Actu­al­ly, the state has for­mal­ly secured the right to “appoint” those, who will be con­sid­ered to be the civ­il soci­ety nowa­days.”

More­over, the BHC out­lined the fol­low­ing trends in gov­ern­men­tal pol­i­cy in this area:

- repro­duc­tion of unlaw­ful prac­tices of secu­ri­ty forces by pro-gov­ern­ment civ­il insti­tu­tions (“Carte blanche for vio­lence, irre­spon­si­bly giv­en by the state to secu­ri­ty forces in August 2020, has, among oth­er, anoth­er dan­ger­ous effect, which is the cor­rup­tion of soci­ety in terms of the lack of restric­tions. Name­ly, impuni­ty for vio­lence, if it is used for the sake of meet­ing the “polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect”, pro-gov­ern­men­tal goals”);

- pros­e­cu­tion for finan­cial dona­tions to funds that help vic­tims of repres­sion.

The lat­ter trend was also high­light­ed by “Lawtrend” NGO: “There is the end­less line of peo­ple being sum­moned to the KGB for alleged­ly financ­ing extrem­ist groups by means of trans­fer­ring even tiny amounts of online dona­tions.”

SITUATION IN MASS MEDIA FIELD

The sup­pres­sion of free­dom of speech and the fight again dis­sent, includ­ing cen­sor­ship and repres­sions against jour­nal­ists, con­tin­ued in Belarus in 2022 — 2023.

An impor­tant fac­tor that left its mark on the gov­ern­men­tal pol­i­cy was the full-scale aggres­sion of Rus­sia against Ukraine (since Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022), sup­port­ed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties. Apart from sup­press­ing the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion about polit­i­cal and legal sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, the gov­ern­ment start­ed to sup­press dis­tri­b­u­tion of anti-war state­ments and objec­tive infor­ma­tion about the rea­sons and the course of mil­i­tary activ­i­ties in Ukraine, if the updates dif­fered from the offi­cial point of view.

The infor­ma­tion space of Belarus was under the con­trol of both law enforce­ment agen­cies and the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, which car­ried out cen­sor­ship through admin­is­tra­tive means.

The mea­sures were accom­pa­nied by tight­en­ing the FoE leg­is­la­tion at the sys­temic lev­el.

Numer­ous changes were made to the Con­sti­tu­tion of Belarus at the so-called ref­er­en­dum on Feb­ru­ary 27, 2022. They fur­ther upset the bal­ance of pow­er. (How­ev­er, the sys­tem of checks and bal­ances had been destroyed back in 1996). Thus, the con­cept of “ide­ol­o­gy of the Belaru­sian state” was intro­duced into Arti­cle 4, despite the pro­hi­bi­tion on estab­lish­ing the ide­ol­o­gy of polit­i­cal par­ties, reli­gious or oth­er pub­lic asso­ci­a­tions, and social groups as oblig­a­tory for cit­i­zens, which can be found in the same arti­cle.  

Arti­cle 54 of the Con­sti­tu­tion was sup­ple­ment­ed with Part 2: “Pre­serv­ing the his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of the hero­ic past of the Belaru­sian peo­ple and patri­o­tism are the duty of every cit­i­zen of the Repub­lic of Belarus,” which essen­tial­ly lim­its free­dom of opin­ion regard­ing his­tor­i­cal events and should be con­sid­ered in the con­text of the law “On the Geno­cide of the Belaru­sian peo­ple” adopt­ed on Jan­u­ary 5, 2022, which intro­duced crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty for pub­lic denial of the offi­cial inter­pre­ta­tion of his­tor­i­cal events of 1941–1951 (Arti­cle 130–2 of the Crim­i­nal Code “Denial of the Geno­cide of the Belaru­sian peo­ple”), pro­vid­ing for the penal­ty of up to 10 years in prison.

These leg­isla­tive inno­va­tions make a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of free­dom of expres­sion.

On July 1, 2023, changes were made to the law “On Mass Media”, which were jus­ti­fied by the need for “an ade­quate response to destruc­tive process­es in the media space” and fur­ther lim­it­ed the activ­i­ties of the press. In par­tic­u­lar, they intro­duced cer­tain require­ments for the oper­a­tion of news aggre­ga­tors. (Among oth­er things, the amend­ments pro­vid­ed for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of block­ing the Web-aggre­ga­tors for dis­trib­ut­ing the con­tent of the blocked Web­sites.) The list of grounds for depriv­ing media out­lets of offi­cial reg­is­tra­tion and restrict­ing access to Web-resources was expand­ed. Also, the author­i­ties intro­duced the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using sym­met­ri­cal mea­sures in response to “anti-Belaru­sian” attacks by for­eign media and jour­nal­ists etc.

Almost all major inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion resources con­tin­ued to func­tion from abroad. Some media out­lets expe­ri­enced repeat­ed relo­ca­tion after the out­break of the war in Ukraine at that. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists also con­tin­ued its work, being in exile.

In 2022, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Prize for its con­tri­bu­tion to press free­dom.

Repres­sion against jour­nal­ists and media spe­cial­ists

Crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion

Accord­ing to the ‘Reporters With­out Bor­ders’ inter­na­tion­al non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, Belarus is at the bot­tom of the top five coun­tries of the world with the largest num­ber of jour­nal­ists behind bars (31 peo­ple at the moment of com­pil­ing the report) and holds the 4^th posi­tion as for the num­ber of impris­oned female jour­nal­ists (9) in the coun­try.

17 sen­tences were passed in crim­i­nal cas­es against jour­nal­ists and oth­er media work­ers dur­ing the year of 2022. The largest sen­tence of 14 years in colony was announced to Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, who was charged with his col­leagues with­in the ‘Bela­PAN case’.

The top man­agers of TUT.by news por­tal Mary­na Zolata­va and Liud­mi­la Chek­ina were each sen­tenced to 12 years in prison. A ‘Bel­sat’ jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Andreye­va, who was sen­tenced to two years in prison in 2020, was also con­vict­ed of ‘high trea­son’ (Arti­cle 356 of the Crim­i­nal Code) and sen­tenced addi­tion­al­ly to eight years of impris­on­ment, on top of the ini­tial prison term. Sen­tences on crim­i­nal charges were pro­nounced to 15 jour­nal­ists in Jan­u­ary — Sep­tem­ber 2023.

In 2022, the author­i­ties began to announce charges to polit­i­cal emi­grants, includ­ing oppo­si­tion blog­gers, in absen­tia. The pro­ce­dure was applied sub­ject to the intro­duc­tion of the insti­tu­tion of “spe­cial pro­ceed­ings”, due to a new Arti­cle 468–27 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Code, i.e. crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against the accused peo­ple who are locat­ed out­side of Belarus.

The first con­vic­tion in absen­tia was ini­ti­at­ed with­in a crim­i­nal case under Arti­cle 130 (‘incite­ment of hatred’) and Arti­cle 203−1 (‘ille­gal col­lec­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of per­son­al data’) against five ‘admin­is­tra­tors’ of the Black Book of Belarus Telegram chan­nel, which pub­lished infor­ma­tion about gov­ern­ment offi­cials who were accused of per­se­cut­ing the oppo­si­tion.  Dzmit­ry Navosha, a pub­lic fig­ure, a jour­nal­ist, and a co-founder of Sports.ru Web­site was among the con­vict­ed peo­ple. On Jan­u­ary 18, 2023, all defen­dants were each sen­tenced in absen­tia to 12 years in prison.

On May 3, a ver­dict was pro­nounced with­in a crim­i­nal case against well-known blog­gers, who edit­ed the Nex­ta and ‘Belarus of the Brain’ Telegram chan­nels. Stsi­a­pan Put­si­la was sen­tenced to 20 years in a max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty colony, and Yan Rudzik was sen­tenced to 19 years in prison. The case was con­sid­ered in absen­tia with­in the spe­cial pro­ce­dure. Raman Prata­se­vich, who col­lab­o­rat­ed with the inves­ti­ga­tion, was sen­tenced to 8 years in a max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty colony. He was par­doned by Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka lat­er.

The impris­oned jour­nal­ists were sub­ject­ed to pres­sure and inhu­mane treat­ment in the colonies. It was report­ed that Siarhei Sat­suk, Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, and Andrzej Poc­zobut faced prob­lems obtain­ing med­i­cines and access to qual­i­fied med­ical care.

Accord­ing to human rights defend­ers, a jour­nal­ist Ihar Losik went on a hunger strike for a long peri­od of time, and then cut his hands and neck in the Navap­o­latsk colony. Con­se­quent­ly, he was sent to the prison hos­pi­tal.

A blog­ger from Pin­sk Mikalai Klimovich, 61, died in Vit­seb­sk Colony No. 3 on May 7, 2023. At the end of Feb­ru­ary he was sen­tenced to one year in prison on charges of ‘insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus’ despite the fact that the court was aware of a very seri­ous heart con­di­tion he had.

Deten­tions and search­es

In 2022, the BAJ reg­is­tered 43 cas­es of deten­tion of jour­nal­ists and 55 search­es. Also, the jour­nal­ists were fined four times and sen­tenced 20 times to dif­fer­ent terms of admin­is­tra­tive arrest.

Since the begin­ning of 2023, 26 search­es have been car­ried out in jour­nal­ists’ hous­es and edi­to­r­i­al offices. Also, there have been reg­is­tered 35 cas­es of deten­tion and 14 cas­es of admin­is­tra­tive arrest of jour­nal­ists in the coun­try. More­over, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of law enforce­ment agen­cies sum­moned jour­nal­ists for ques­tion­ing, vis­it­ed rel­a­tives and searched the homes of jour­nal­ists, includ­ing those who had left Belarus. Thus, start­ing from 2020, the police paid six vis­its to a jour­nal­ist Ana­tol Hatouchyts from Homiel. Four of these vis­its were accom­pa­nied by a search and seizure of equip­ment.

Since 2020, the total num­ber of attacks on jour­nal­ists has been decreas­ing from year to year. This hap­pened since there remained few­er and few­er active jour­nal­ists in the coun­try. This process is called ‘Turk­m­eniza­tion’.

Dur­ing 2022–2023, the author­i­ties pur­pose­ful­ly liq­ui­dat­ed inde­pen­dent region­al media that were still func­tion­ing in the coun­try. The pres­sure on these pub­li­ca­tions was of a com­plex nature. It includ­ed inter­ro­ga­tions, cas­es of deten­tion and admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion of employ­ees, seizure of equip­ment, refusal to dis­trib­ute con­tent, defama­tion in pro-gov­ern­ment media, and, final­ly, the almost simul­ta­ne­ous recog­ni­tion of their con­tent as ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als.’

As a result of this pol­i­cy, the num­ber of non-state print­ed pub­li­ca­tions reg­is­tered by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly from 764 to 560 media out­lets in 2022. At the same time, the num­ber of state-owned media changed from 414 to 403. Almost all of the remain­ing reg­is­tered media in Belarus either fol­low the gov­ern­men­tal media pol­i­cy or avoid polit­i­cal top­ics (includ­ing the war in Ukraine) or resort to self-cen­sor­ship.

The use of anti-extrem­ist leg­is­la­tion to sup­press free­dom of speech

The use of anti-extrem­ist leg­is­la­tion was the main tool of pros­e­cu­tion for the pub­li­ca­tion of “unde­sir­able” infor­ma­tion and, more broad­ly, for any man­i­fes­ta­tions of dis­loy­al­ty. First of all, it was used as the grounds for block­ing access to online media and pros­e­cut­ing peo­ple for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion.

Dur­ing 2022, the pub­li­ca­tions of about 1,500 Web resources (main­ly Telegram chan­nels and online com­mu­ni­ties) were rec­og­nized by the courts as “extrem­ist mate­ri­als”, and more than a hun­dred of them were labeled as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”.

As before, it entailed mass admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion of Web-users for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of “extrem­ist” media con­tent (in par­tic­u­lar, under Arti­cle 19.11 of the Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es, which pro­vides for up to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest). The appli­ca­tion of this arti­cle was pecu­liar enough, since the author­i­ties pre­sent­ed admin­is­tra­tive charges to peo­ple for reposts of mate­ri­als, which had been pub­lished many years ear­li­er and which weren’t includ­ed in the list of extrem­ist mate­ri­als at the moment of their dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Since 2023, the author­i­ties start­ed label­ing as ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ not only online con­tent, but also pub­li­ca­tions in print media and per­son­al pages with crit­i­cal mate­ri­als on social media, some of which were pub­lished decades ago (e.g., a social media account, estab­lished by a jour­nal­ist Rus­lan Kule­vich from Bia­lystok).

Since the begin­ning of 2023, there has been reg­is­tered a dra­mat­ic increase in the num­ber of admin­is­tra­tive cas­es for dis­sem­i­na­tion of ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als.’ Thus, in the first half of the year it increased by 1.7 times com­pared to the same peri­od in 2022 (at least 1,274 cas­es against 721). Since almost all lead­ing media resources have been “banned” with­out tak­ing into account the age of pub­li­ca­tions, almost every per­son can be held account­able under Arti­cle 19.11 of Belarus Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offences.

Eigh­teen media out­lets, includ­ing ‘Bel­sat’, ‘Bela­PAN’, ‘Euro­ra­dio’, ‘TUT.BY’, ‘KYKY.ORG’, ‘Nasha Niva’, ‘Radio Lib­er­ty’, ‘Charter’97’, ‘Flag­stock’, ‘Hrodna.life’, ‘Volkovysk.by’, ‘Malan­ka Media’, ‘Bobruysk Online’, ‘Brest­skaya Gaze­ta’, ‘SAMOE’, ‘Zerka­lo’, ‘MOST’, ‘Ranak’ as well as the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and  the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter were labeled as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” or “extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions” in 2022 — 2023. The appear­ance of for­eign media among “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” has become a new phe­nom­e­non in 2023. These are the Telegram, YouTube and Tik­Tok accounts of the pop­u­lar Ukrain­ian blog­ger Alexan­der Rykov (Bal­aganOff). He pays sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion to Belaru­sian issues in his videos.

A num­ber of employ­ees of media orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” were con­vict­ed under Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (“cre­ation of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion or par­tic­i­pa­tion in it”), which envis­ages the sanc­tion of up to 10 years in prison and is actu­al­ly retroac­tive.

In 2022, the author­i­ties start­ed crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of ordi­nary cit­i­zens for any form of coop­er­a­tion with Inter­net resources rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”.

Pro­vid­ing any infor­ma­tion, giv­ing inter­views etc. became the basis for fil­ing cas­es under Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code (“facil­i­ta­tion of extrem­ist activ­i­ties”) that envis­aged a pun­ish­ment of up to sev­en years in prison.‎ Daria Losik, the wife of Radio Lib­er­ty employ­ee Ihar Losik was sen­tenced to two years of impris­on­ment in Jan­u­ary 2023 for being inter­viewed by the Bel­sat TV chan­nel about the sit­u­a­tion of her hus­band in jail. At the same time, their four-year-old daugh­ter was placed under the care of rel­a­tives.

The first crim­i­nal case under the new “extrem­ist” Arti­cle 130–2 (“denial of the geno­cide of the Belaru­sian peo­ple”), includ­ed in the Crim­i­nal Code in 2022, was ini­ti­at­ed in con­nec­tion with pub­li­ca­tions in inde­pen­dent media — “Flag­stock” (Homiel) and “Zerka­lo” – about bur­ial sites of vic­tims of Stal­in­ist repres­sions, which, accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tor’s office, are the graves of peo­ple killed by the Nazis.

The List of cit­i­zens of the Repub­lic of Belarus, for­eign cit­i­zens or state­less per­sons involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties was first pub­lished on March 23, 2022. 19 jour­nal­ists and a num­ber of pop­u­lar blog­gers were includ­ed into the list lat­er on.

More­over, the KGB men­tioned 7 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, includ­ing a jour­nal­ist and one of the lead­ers of the Union of Poles in Belarus Andrzej Poc­zobut as well as four for­mer employ­ees of TUT.BY in the list of “indi­vid­u­als involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties”.

Restric­tion of access to infor­ma­tion

Cen­sor­ship and restric­tion of access to Web­sites

Russia’s aggres­sion against Ukraine has led to the sit­u­a­tion, when cen­sor­ship began to affect not only the Belaru­sian media con­tent, but also the con­tent of for­eign media. Short­ly after the begin­ning of the war, access to 6 Ukrain­ian news Web­sites was blocked on the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus, includ­ing “Gor­don”, “Observ­er”, RBC-Ukraine, InfoRe­sist, “Novoe Vre­mya”, and “Focus”, due to the fact that they cov­ered the mil­i­tary con­flict in Ukraine in a way that was dis­tinct from the offi­cial inter­pre­ta­tion of Russ­ian-Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­da.

The block­ing of Russ­ian users’ access to Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media for the same rea­sons became a new phe­nom­e­non in 2022. By deci­sions of the Fed­er­al Ser­vice for Super­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Mass Media, abbre­vi­at­ed as Roskom­nad­zor, or the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, a num­ber of news Web­sites (Zerkalo.io, “Nasha Niva”, “Euro­ra­dio”, “Media-Palessie”, “Sal­i­dar­nasts” and oth­ers) as well as the Web­site of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists were blocked on the ter­ri­to­ry of the coun­try.

The VKon­tak­te social net­work (Rus­sia) blocked access to a num­ber of pages and groups of Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media “Char­ter-97” and “Flag­stock” in response to a com­plaint from the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus. Also, it blocked pub­lic access to the pages and groups of “Zerka­lo” and “Medi­a­zone Belarus” at the request of the Russ­ian Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office.

Accord­ing to offi­cial data, the gov­ern­ment restrict­ed access, in whole or in part, to 3,002 Web resources (main­ly Telegram chan­nels and chats) in Jan­u­ary – Novem­ber 2022. At the same time, just over 5,000 resources had been sub­ject to such restric­tions over the pre­vi­ous sev­en years.

Quite a few media out­lets that con­tin­ued to oper­ate in Belarus were sub­ject to tem­po­rary block­ing in accor­dance with deci­sions of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion. The con­di­tion for restor­ing access was the removal of cer­tain con­tent. Thus, the Blizko.by news web­site about Min­sk and Belarus was tem­porar­i­ly blocked by deci­sion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion due to men­tion­ing a blog­ger Anton Matol­ka in one of pub­li­ca­tions on the Web-resource. The lat­ter was includ­ed in the list of “ter­ror­ists” some time ago. When the author­i­ties restored pub­lic access to the Web-resource, none of polit­i­cal news pub­li­ca­tions could be found on its pages, includ­ing the archival ones.

Increas­ing ide­ol­o­giza­tion of state media activ­i­ties

The ide­ol­o­giza­tion of state media activ­i­ties con­tin­ued along­side their reori­en­ta­tion towards pure­ly pro­pa­gan­da work. The “hybrid war” that is alleged­ly being waged against Belarus and Rus­sia was con­stant­ly men­tioned at the offi­cial lev­el, also in the con­text of events in Ukraine.

On March 25, 2022, Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka stat­ed dur­ing a meet­ing on mass media activ­i­ties that “adver­tis­ing should appear on patri­ot­ic pro-gov­ern­men­tal (not from the point of view of own­er­ship) chan­nels that pro­tect the state.” On March 31, 2022, Pres­i­den­tial Decree No. 131 “On the Devel­op­ment of Mass Media” was signed. It estab­lished an adver­tis­ing fee of 10% for out­door ads as well as for adver­tis­ing on pub­lic trans­port. In oth­er cas­es, the fee amount­ed to 20% of the cost of adver­tis­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices. The fee is sup­posed to be paid by adver­tis­ers and the raised funds are to be used to sub­si­dize the state media.

Since 2023, enroll­ment of stu­dents at the Fac­ul­ty of Jour­nal­ism of the Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty has been reduced by 20%, and the paid stud­ies with self-employ­ment have been can­celled. As Dean Ali­ak­sey Bialayeu explained, the depart­ment is busy ful­fill­ing the gov­ern­ment orders, prepar­ing “com­bat bay­o­net war­riors” for the state media.

At the same time, polit­i­cal purges of state media work­ers con­tin­ued. Thus, at the end of 2022, 8 employ­ees were fired at Homiel Region­al Tele­vi­sion and the TV chan­nel man­age­ment was replaced.  

Since Belarus has been inter­na­tion­al­ly regard­ed as an aggres­sor coun­try in the Russ­ian-Ukrain­ian con­flict, addi­tion­al sanc­tions were intro­duced against Belaru­sian state media. Thus, the Union of Euro­pean Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tions (UEFA) exclud­ed the Belaru­sian TV and Radio com­pa­ny from the list of offi­cial broad­cast­ers of the League of Nations. Con­se­quent­ly, the match­es of the nation­al foot­ball team could no longer be watched on the Belarus 5 TV chan­nel. The Belaru­sian TV and Radio Com­pa­ny was also exclud­ed from the list of broad­cast­ers of Olympic games for the com­ing 10 years.

Ukraine and the Euro­pean Union intro­duced sanc­tions against cer­tain Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­dists.

ACTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Inde­pen­dent mass media and civ­il soci­ety respond to pres­sure and repres­sions with sol­i­dar­i­ty and mutu­al sup­port. Thus, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) arranged  the inter­na­tion­al Marathon of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the impris­oned jour­nal­ists and took part in “We Care!” online char­i­ty marathon in sup­port of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, arranged by influ­en­tial inde­pen­dent media and blog­gers. The orga­niz­ers  col­lect­ed  more than EUR 574,000 for the polit­i­cal­ly repressed peo­ple dur­ing the action.

Among oth­er goals, these actions are aimed at keep­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, human rights, and, par­tic­u­lar­ly, free­dom of speech vio­la­tions in Belarus in the focus of atten­tion of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The out­come of these actions is reflect­ed in res­o­lu­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and struc­tures.  

Thus, among oth­er, the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus rec­om­mends the gov­ern­ment of Belarus in her report (par.111):

- to repeal the denun­ci­a­tion of and re-accede to the Option­al Pro­to­col to the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights with­out delay;

- to intro­duce a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty with­out delay and rat­i­fy the Sec­ond Option­al Pro­to­col to the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights, aim­ing at the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty;

- to put an end to the pol­i­cy of sys­tem­at­ic repres­sion of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and human rights defend­ers

- to ensure in law and in prac­tice the right to free­dom of opin­ion and expres­sion, peace­ful assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion and ensure that any lim­i­ta­tion on those rights is in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al law;

- to revoke all the deci­sions on the dis­so­lu­tion of inde­pen­dent media and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing those work­ing in the area of eco­nom­ic, social and cul­tur­al rights, and bring the leg­is­la­tion reg­u­lat­ing the reg­is­tra­tion of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and the media into align­ment with inter­na­tion­al human rights law;

- to release all pris­on­ers sen­tenced on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed grounds, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly with the release of per­sons whose health and life are endan­gered;

- to pro­vide unre­strict­ed access for inde­pen­dent mon­i­tors to all places of deten­tion;

- to ensure that inter­na­tion­al fair tri­al stan­dards are met, notably by ensur­ing that all defen­dants are giv­en unhin­dered access to legal coun­sel of their choos­ing and are pre­sumed inno­cent until proven oth­er­wise by an inde­pen­dent court deci­sion;

- to ensure the prompt, trans­par­ent and effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion by an inde­pen­dent and impar­tial body into all cas­es of death in cus­tody and reports of tor­ture and oth­er ill-treat­ment and pros­e­cute and hold account­able pub­lic offi­cials, includ­ing law enforce­ment offi­cials, found respon­si­ble for issu­ing or car­ry­ing out such ille­gal orders;

- to take com­pre­hen­sive mea­sures to end repres­sion and fear and reverse the trend of the mass exile of Belaru­sians from their coun­try.

More­over, the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur addressed rec­om­men­da­tions to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty (par.112), in par­tic­u­lar, call­ing:

- to con­tin­ue to demand that Belarus com­ply with its inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions;

- to sup­port indi­vid­u­als forced into exile and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions that have had to relo­cate out­side of Belarus;

- to con­tin­ue to expand sup­port for the crit­i­cal work of jour­nal­ists, civ­il soci­ety actors and human rights defend­ers;

- to encour­age Mem­ber States to share and learn from best prac­tices for sup­port­ing Belaru­sian stu­dents, edu­ca­tors and researchers who have fled Belarus for fear of fur­ther repres­sion.

The Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights addressed the gov­ern­ment of Belarus in his report with an appeal to stop human rights vio­la­tions. More­over, he rec­om­mend­ed the UN Mem­ber States to work on bring­ing the human rights abusers to legal account­abil­i­ty through pro­ceed­ings in nation­al courts based on gen­er­al­ly accept­ed prin­ci­ples of extrater­ri­to­r­i­al and uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion, as appro­pri­ate, and in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al law, while also explor­ing fur­ther tar­get­ed mea­sures against those alleged to be respon­si­ble for seri­ous vio­la­tions of human rights. Also, he encour­aged the Mem­ber States to keep the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus under the con­trol of the Human Rights Coun­cil and, if nec­es­sary, con­sid­er oth­er mech­a­nisms of bring­ing the human rights vio­la­tors to legal account­abil­i­ty in line with the Council’s prac­tice.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has repeat­ed­ly drawn the atten­tion of the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to the fact that jour­nal­ists are not crim­i­nals, and that there can­not be a free soci­ety with­out the free press. BAJ demands that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties set our col­leagues free and calls on jour­nal­ist, human rights, and human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions around the world as well as well-known pub­lic fig­ures to use their author­i­ty to influ­ence the release of unjust­ly con­vict­ed peo­ple in Belarus from prison.

LIST OF SOURCES

1. Mass Media in Belarus. Three Years after Elec­tions, 2023, #3, (BAJ), https://baj.media/sites/default/files/analytics/files/2023/mm-03732023-en.pdf.

2. Call­ing of an Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion, 14 Decem­ber 1946, (UN. Gen­er­al Assem­bly), <https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/035/16/PDF/NR003516.pdf?OpenElement>.

3. Sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus in the run-up to the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and in its after­math — Report of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, 3 Feb­ru­ary 2023, (UN), https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5268-belarus-run-2020-presidential-election-and-its-aftermath-report.

4. Report of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights on the Sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus: vio­la­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions (‘Right to Defence’), <https://www.defendersbelarus.org/news/tpost/pvv726usy1-doklad-verhovnogo-komissara-oon-po-situa>.

5. Report of the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus, Anaïs Marin, 3 May 2023, (UN), https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5353-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-belarus-anais.

       6.“The cit­i­zens of Belarus won’t be able to sub­mit com­plaints to the UN Human Rights Com­mit­tee”, UN), https://news.un.org/ru/story/2022/11/1435152>.

7. (Vias­na), <https://spring96.org/ru/about>.

8. (Vias­na), <https://prisoners.spring96.org/ru/person/ales-bjaljackiy>.

       9.“Human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus. August 2023”, (Vias­na), https://spring96.org/en/news/112675.

10. “Human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus. Sep­tem­ber 2023”, (Vias­na), https://spring96.org/en/news/112961.

11. (Тhinktanks.by), < https://thinktanks.by/persons/korshunov.html>.

12. Henadz Kor­shu­nau, “What are the large trends in rela­tions between the state and soci­ety? Part 1, (The Cen­ter for New Ideas), https://newideas.center/trendy-vo-vzaimootnosheniyax-gosudarstva-i-obshhestva/>.

13. (The Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee), https://belhelcom.org/en/about.

14. Sabi­na Bri­lo, ‘Natalia Matske­vich: Any dia­logue with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the regime should begin with the ques­tion: “Why are peo­ple being tor­tured in Belarus?”: PROMINENT POLITICAL PRISONERS IN BELARUS HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY CUT OFF FROM ANY CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR OVER SIX MONTHS’, (Ost­west Mon­i­tor­ing), <https://ostwest.space/articles/belarus/153-natalia-matskevich-interview-belarus-prominent-political-prisoners-incommunicado-en>.

15. “We’ll mas­sacre all the scum you’ve been financ­ing”: tran­script of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s inter­view with BBC, (Delfi), <https://www.delfi.lt/ru/abroad/belorussia/vyrezhem-vseh-merzavcev-kotoryh-vy-finansirovali-polnaya-rasshifrovka-intervyu-aleksandra-lukashenko-bi-bi-si-88745639>.

16. (Lawtrend), <https://www.lawtrend.org/about-us>.

17.  Mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion of free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in the Repub­lic of Belarus in Sep­tem­ber 2023, (Lawtrend),

https://www.lawtrend.org/english/monitoring-the-situation-of-freedom-of-association-and-civil-society-organisations-in-the-republic-of-belarus-september-2023.

18. Human Rights in Belarus: Key Trends in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, Jan­u­ary – June 2023, (The Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee), <https://trends.belhelcom.org/storage/reviews/July2023/YPgwxOCkfVahLYXrpmyI.pdf>.

19. Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus, <https://normativka.by/lib/document/500079805?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIucr6vOSOggMVFVGRBR2oBQuoEAAYASAAEgKUZPD_BwE>/

20. “On the Geno­cide of the Belaru­sian Peo­ple” (Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus), <https://pravo.by/document/?guid=12551&p0=H12200146&p1=1>.

21. “On Mass Media” (Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus), <https://pravo.by/document/?guid=3871&p0=h10800427>.

22. Human rights: Belarus jour­nal­ists win World Press Free­dom Prize (UN News),

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1117102.

23. 2022 Round Up: Jour­nal­ists detained, killed, held hostage and miss­ing (Reporters with­out Bor­ders), < https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/medias/file/2022/12/RSF_Bilan2022_EN.pdf>.

24. Mass Media in Belarus in 2022 (BAJ), https://baj.media/en/analytics/mass-media-belarus-2022.

25. Repres­sions against jour­nal­ists in Belarus 2023, list of col­leagues in prison, (BAJ), https://baj.by/en/analytics/repressions-against-journalists-belarus-2023-list-colleagues-prison.

     30.Belarusian Oppo­si­tion Blog­ger Klimovich Dies In Prison, Says Rights Group, (RFE/RL’s Belarus Ser­vice), https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-opposition-blogger-klimovich-dies-prison/32400663.html.

32. (The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus), <http://mininform.gov.by/>.

33. Secu­ri­ty forces filed 5,000 cas­es for ‘extrem­ism’ dur­ing the incom­plete year 2022, and the ‘ebul­lient activ­i­ty’ doesn’t stop, (BAJ), <https://baj.by/be/content/za-nyapouny-2022-god-silaviki-zavyali-5000-sprau-za-ekstremizm-i-kipuchaya-dzeynasc-ne>.

34. Retroac­tive force of anti-extrem­ist leg­is­la­tion in Belarus: why the author­i­ties can impose a fine or arrest for reposts from ten years ago, (Human Con­stan­ta), <https://humanconstanta.org/obratnaya-sila-antiekstremistskogo-zakonodatelstva-v-belarusi-pochemu-mogut-dat-shtraf-ili-sutki-za-reposty-desyatiletnej-davnosti/>.

35. Analy­sis of sta­tis­tics of offens­es under “extrem­ist” arti­cles of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code accord­ing to the data­base of court deci­sions, (Human Con­stan­ta), https://humanconstanta.org/analiz-statistiki-pravonarushenij-po-ekstremistskim-statyam-koap-po-dannym-banka-sudebnyx-reshenij/.

36. Ukrain­ian blog­ger Bal­aganOff labeled as an “extrem­ist group­ing” in Belarus, (BAJ), <https://baj.by/be/content/ukrainski-bloger-balaganoff-pryznany-u-belarusi-ekstremisckim-farmavannem>.

37. The author­i­ties file crim­i­nal cas­es for inter­views with “extrem­ist mass media” in dif­fer­ent Belaru­sian cities and towns, (BAJ), <https://baj.by/be/content/u‑roznyh-garadah-belarusi-za-intervyu-ekstremisckim-smi-raspachynayuc-kryminalnyya-spravy>.

38. Wife Of Jailed RFE/RL Jour­nal­ist Sen­tenced to Two Years In Prison In Belarus, (RFE/RL’s Belarus Ser­vice), <https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-darya-losik-jailed/32230436.html>.

39. The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office filed a crim­i­nal case against «Flag­stock» and «Zerka­lo», (BAJ), <https://baj.by/be/content/genprakuratura-raspachala-kryminalnuyu-spravu-suprac-flagshtoka-i-zerkala>.

40. The List of Cit­i­zens of Belarus, For­eign Cit­i­zens, and State­less Per­sons, Engaged in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ty, (Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus) , <https://www.mvd.gov.by/ru/news/8642>.

      42.A num­ber of news Web­sites blocked in Rus­sia due to mil­i­tary cen­sor­ship and sev­er­al links to songs, (OVD-Info), <https://ovd.info/express-news/2023/06/18/v‑rossii-zablokirovali-ryad-novostnykh-saytov-iz-za-voennoy-cenzury‑i >.

       43.“MAIN DIRECTIONS OF GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES IN THE FIELD OF INFORMATION SECURITY” (RESOURCES for the mem­bers of infor­ma­tion­al and pro­pa­gan­dist groups, Decem­ber 2022),  <https://minsk.gov.by/ru/actual/view/209/2022/inf_material_2022_12.shtml>.

      44.The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion unblocked access to the ‘Blizko.by’ non-state web­site. The pol­i­tics can­not be found there any longer, (BAJ), https://baj.by/ru/content/mininform-razblokiroval-dostup-k-negosudarstvennomu-saytu-blizkoby-na-nem-ischezla-politika. 

45. “On Devel­op­ment of Mass Media” (Decree of the Pres­i­dent of Belarus), https://president.gov.by/bucket/assets/uploads/documents/2022/131uk.pdf>.

      46.“You are our fight­ing bay­o­nets in the infor­ma­tion war”, not­ed Piart­sou to the first-year stu­dents of the Jour­nal­ism Depart­ment (BelTA), <https://www.belta.by/society/view/pertsov-pervokursnikam-zhurfaka-vy-nashi-boevye-shtyki-v-informatsionnoj-vojne-585656–2023/>.

     47.Mass redun­dan­cies on Homiel TV. An expe­ri­enced pro­pa­gan­dist dis­missed, (BAJ), <https://baj.by/be/content/na-gomelskom-televidenii-proizoshli-massovye-uvolneniya-uvolen-propagandist-so-stazhem>.

48. UEFA removed the Belaru­sian State TV from the list of broad­cast­ers of the League of Nations. The match­es won’t be shown in Belarus any longer, (Zerka­lo), https://news.zerkalo.io/cellar/16074.html?c.

    50.Ukraine intro­duced sanc­tions against Lukashenka’s pro­pa­gan­dists, (“Nasha Niva”), <https://nashaniva.com/307630>.

52. Marathon of sol­i­dar­i­ty, (BAJ), https://baj.by/en/events/115.

53.  «We stand by the truth, we stand togeth­er!» A marathon of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the impris­oned jour­nal­ists start­ed in Vil­nius, (БАЖ), <https://baj.by/en/analytics/we-stand-truth-we-stand-together-marathon-solidarity-imprisoned-journalists-started>.

54. (Nasha Niva), <https://d2o41s90g1m7rs.cloudfront.net/_mobile_/322899/>.