E‑NEWSLETTER ‘MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS’ #1 (60) 2020. RESULTS OF THE YEAR 2019

MEDIA RESULTS OF THE YEAR 2019 IN FIGURES

21 jour­nal­ists and blog­gers suf­fered from arbi­trary deten­tion

2  jour­nal­ists and blog­gers con­vict­ed on crim­i­nal charges

44 fines imposed on free­lance jour­nal­ists for col­lab­o­ra­tion with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion

EUR 18,000 is the total sum of fines imposed on jour­nal­ists for con­tribut­ing mate­ri­als to for­eign media

6 non-state Web-resources got reg­is­tered as mass media since the moment of adop­tion of amend­ments to the Mass Media Law of  Belarus, which stip­u­late the reg­is­tra­tion pro­ce­dure for online media

Over EUR 70 mil­lion reserved for fund­ing the state-owned media in the State bud­get 2020

153 (out of 180) is the rank­ing of Belarus in the World Press Free­dom Index, com­piled by ‘Reporters with­out Bor­ders’

SITUATION IN MASS MEDIA FIELD IN 2019 (REVIEW)

The gen­er­al sit­u­a­tion in the Belaru­sian mass media field was con­tro­ver­sial in 2019. On the one hand, it was influ­enced by the over­whelm­ing trend of rein­forc­ing gov­ern­men­tal con­trol over the media space. On the oth­er hand, due to host­ing the 2^nd Euro­pean Games, the offi­cial author­i­ties were pushed towards greater open­ness of the coun­try. The com­pli­cat­ed for­eign pol­i­cy and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, includ­ing nego­ti­a­tion process­es with the Euro­pean Union and the Unit­ed States, the increas­ing size of exter­nal debt and pres­sure on the part of Rus­sia as well as the elec­tions to the Belaru­sian par­lia­ment, held on Novem­ber 17, 2019, had their impact on the sit­u­a­tion in the media field, too. 

The 2^nd Euro­pean Games were held in the cap­i­tal city of Min­sk on June 21–30, 2019.

On the eve of the inter­na­tion­al sport event, a human rights orga­ni­za­tion Human Rights Watch called upon the Olympic offi­cials to guar­an­tee safe­ty of jour­nal­ists in Min­sk:

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties have car­ried out con­cert­ed attacks on media free­dom over the past two years that direct­ly affect the cli­mate in which news media will cov­er the coun­try before, dur­ing, and after the upcom­ing Euro­pean Games, Human Rights Watch said today. The Euro­pean Olympic Com­mit­tees (EOC) should ensure that all jour­nal­ists, for­eign and local, cov­er­ing the 2019 Euro­pean Games in Belarus can oper­ate free from harass­ment.”

Despite the fears of human rights activists and jour­nal­is­tic orga­ni­za­tions, none of seri­ous con­flicts relat­ed to the imple­men­ta­tion of jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties occured dur­ing the Euro­pean Games. More­over, the pres­sure on free­lance jour­nal­ists had decreased by the begin­ning of the inter­na­tion­al sport event. In par­tic­u­lar, such jour­nal­ists were fined 38 times on court deci­sions for coop­er­a­tion with for­eign mass media with­out press cre­den­tials with­in the peri­od since Jan­u­ary till the end of May 2019. The wave of oppres­sion sus­pend­ed since May 31, 2019.

How­ev­er, it resumed after a three-month-long break. Con­se­quent­ly, the BAJ reg­is­tered 44 fines, imposed on free­lance jour­nal­ists in 2019 to the total sum of 42049.5 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. USD 21,000)

Crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists and blog­gers on dif­fer­ent grounds was among the main prob­lems in the field of free­dom of expres­sion in Belarus in 2019.

The guilty verdict in relation to TUT.BY Chief Editor Maryna Zolatava and completion of ‘BelTA case’

On March 4, 2019, the Zavod­s­ki City Dis­trict court of Min­sk found the edi­tor-in-chief of the lead­ing Belaru­sian Inter­net por­tal TUT.BY (https://www.tut.by/) Mary­na Zola­to­va guilty of inac­tion as an offi­cial (Arti­cle 425 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus) and sen­tenced her to a fine of 7 650 Belaru­sian rubles (about $ 3,800 at the rate of the Nation­al Bank of Belarus).

More­over, the court urged her to cov­er the pro­ce­dur­al costs of BelTA, con­nect­ed with the lit­i­ga­tion, in the amount of 6 000 Belaru­sian rubles (about $3,000).

M. Zolatava’s con­vic­tion com­plet­ed the so-called ‘BelTA case’, which had been filed in the sum­mer of 2018.

The case ini­ti­a­tion was caused by the unsanc­tioned use of pass­words to the news string of BelTA state news agency by some jour­nal­ists. (The BelTA mate­ri­als could be accessed on the Web-site of the agency free of charge at that. The per­se­cut­ed mass media pub­lished the mate­ri­als in ques­tion with due con­sid­er­a­tion of BelTA rules. The pass­words to the News String weren’t changed by BelTA for years.)

The edi­to­r­i­al offices of Bela­PAN News Agency, TUT.BY Web-por­tal and a num­ber of oth­er media as well as pri­vate apart­ments of some jour­nal­ists, employed by the media, were sub­ject­ed to search­es on August 7–9, 2018.

Pro­fes­sion­al tech­ni­cal equip­ment and infor­ma­tion car­ri­ers were seized dur­ing the search­es. Around 20 jour­nal­ists were detained and inter­ro­gat­ed by legal inves­ti­ga­tors. Eight of them were sent to cus­tody for the peri­od of up to three days. Crim­i­nal cas­es were filed in rela­tion to 15 jour­nal­ists on the charges, envis­aged by arti­cle 349 part 2 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus (‘the unau­tho­rized access to com­put­er infor­ma­tion, com­mit­ted out of mer­ce­nary or oth­er per­son­al inter­est.)

The legal inves­ti­ga­tors’ actions evoked protests on the part of human rights defend­ers, jour­nal­ist orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies, includ­ing the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Union, and OSCE.

The crim­i­nal cas­es against 14 jour­nal­ists were ter­mi­nat­ed at the end of 2018. The media work­ers were brought to admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty in the form of large fines and actu­al com­pul­sion to pay com­pen­sa­tion to BelTA and the “SB. Belarus today” news­pa­per, pub­lished by the Pres­i­den­tial Admin­is­tra­tion.

The TUT.BY Chief Edi­tor Mary­na Zolata­va appeared to be the only con­vict­ed per­son on the ‘BelTA case’, who was brought to crim­i­nal respon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Con­vic­tion & fin­ing of Mari­na Zolo­to­va, edi­tor of TUT.BY, along with dis­pro­por­tion­ate mea­sures of law enforce­ment against Bela­PAN & TUT.BY agen­cies in 2018, may exert chill­ing effect on inde­pen­dent media in Belarus”, not­ed Harlem Désir, OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media.

“The way the author­i­ties per­sist­ed with this case, which was out of all pro­por­tion from the out­set, shows their deter­mi­na­tion to under­mine the state media’s rivals”, not­ed ‘Reporters with­out bor­ders’ react­ing to the court ver­dict in rela­tion to M. Zolata­va.      

The Chair­per­son of the Supreme Court of Belarus Valiantsin Sukala not­ed that the increased pub­lic atten­tion to the tri­al against Zolata­va, includ­ing the pres­ence of diplo­mats and reporters, could be regard­ed as indi­rect pres­sure on the court.

The case of blogger Andrei Pauk

On March 20, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Belarus used its offi­cial Telegram chan­nel to announce the ini­ti­a­tion of a crim­i­nal case under arti­cle 340 part 1 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus on the fact of a delib­er­ate­ly false report of min­ing a dis­trict exec­u­tive com­mit­tee in the urban set­tle­ment of Akt­siabrs­ki. A local blog­ger Andrei Pauk was pre­sent­ed as the sus­pect in the case, since his mobile phone num­ber was indi­cat­ed in the mes­sage about the min­ing.

A.Pauk was detained on March 20, 2019. His house was searched and his com­put­er and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment were seized.

Accord­ing to legal inves­ti­ga­tors, A. Pauk sent an email to the Homiel Region­al Branch of the Min­istry of Emer­gency Sit­u­a­tions with a mes­sage about the min­ing of the Akt­siabrs­ki Dis­trict Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, which is the local gov­ern­men­tal author­i­ty. A.Pauk was released after the inter­ro­ga­tion pro­ce­dure. The crim­i­nal case in rela­tion to him was ter­mi­nat­ed and all tech­ni­cal equip­ment was returned to him one month lat­er.

The sto­ry with false min­ing repeat­ed in May 2019. An e‑mail mes­sage about the ‘min­ing’ of the court build­ing in the city of Mazyr was received by the Min­istry of Emer­gency Sit­u­a­tions. A.Pauk was con­sid­ered as the sus­pect on the case, since his mobile phone num­ber was men­tioned in the mes­sage.

 A.Pauk appealed to the Office of Legal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mit­tee and the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al with a request to find the per­son, who makes use of his per­son­al data to dis­sem­i­nate false mes­sages about the ‘min­ing’ of gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions.

More­over, he filed a claim to court against the police offi­cers, who had vio­lat­ed his rights dur­ing the apart­ment search in his opin­ion. He request­ed the court to oblige the police­men to cov­er his moral dam­ages for his arbi­trary deten­tion on sus­pi­cion of false min­ing.

The blog­ger received per­son­al threats from unknown per­sons through the Viber mes­sen­ger on the eve of the lit­i­ga­tion in Akt­siabrs­ki Dis­trict Court on Sep­tem­ber 24, 2019:

«There will be a court hear­ing tomor­row, and you will lose the case. The issue with the search was ini­ti­at­ed to make you think about your behav­ior, shut your stink­ing mouth, and find a job. Say thanks that we didn’t give you any­thing. Should you con­tin­ue to engage in sab­o­tage and defame the exist­ing gov­ern­ment, cer­tain mea­sures will be tak­en against you. You will be impris­oned and your [obscen­i­ty] wife will car­ry parcels to jail […]».

The author of the harass­ing mes­sage hasn’t been found yet.

On Octo­ber 4, 2019, an oper­a­tional offi­cer on duty from the local Dis­trict Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs phoned Andrei Pauk and told him that, alleged­ly, a phone call had been received from the phone num­ber, owned by Mr. Pauk. Report­ed­ly, the unknown per­son intro­duced him­self as Andrei and told Mr. Pauk’s home address, say­ing that he ‘had killed his wife Olga’. Andrei’s wife Olga had to pro­vide expla­na­tions that the phone call was a provo­ca­tion. The dis­trict police rep­re­sen­ta­tives informed the Pauks that they wouldn’t be able to find the ‘offend­er’.

The court refused to sat­is­fy A. Pauk’s claim against the police offi­cers

Criminal Conviction of Blogger Siarhei Piatrukhin

The Lenin­s­ki City Disc­trict Court of Brest found a blog­ger Siarhei Pia­trukhin guilty under Art. 188, part 2 (“Slan­der”) and arti­cle 189, part 2 (“Insult”) of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus on April 18, 2019.

Four offi­cers of the Lenin­sky City Dis­trict Police Depart­ment of Brest were regard­ed as vic­tims in the case. The court imposed a fine on S. Pia­trukhin in the amount of 360 basic units (9 180 BYN that equals approx. USD 4,600). Also, the judge urged the blog­ger to cov­er moral dam­ages to the police offi­cers Siarhei Ihnat­siuk, Dzmit­ry Yaku­she­vich, Ihar Haliantsich, and Siarhei Tokun in the total sum of 7 500 BYN that equals approx. USD 3,750. More­over, the blog­ger was oblig­ed to cov­er the fees, which had been paid by the vic­tims to their attor­neys and the court in the amount of 1 000 BYN.

The crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion against the blog­ger was rea­soned by the video footage, which had been pro­duced in March 2018 and pre­sent­ed on YouTube. S. Pia­trukhin stat­ed in the videos that a num­ber of offi­cers from Lenin­s­ki City Dis­trict Police Depart­ment had rela­tion to a phys­i­cal attack on a cit­i­zen P. Kamin­s­ki, who appealed to law-enforce­ment bod­ies with a demand to inves­ti­gate the inci­dent and told the blog­ger about it.

14 Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions issued a demand before the tri­al start to ter­mi­nate the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion in rela­tion to S.Piatrukhin. Accord­ing to them, the per­se­cu­tion was polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed and asso­ci­at­ed exclu­sive­ly with imple­men­ta­tion of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and inter­na­tion­al norms in the field of human rights and lib­er­ties, includ­ing the free­dom of expres­sion as well as the free­dom to col­lect and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion.

On July 5, 2019, the Judi­cial Pan­el on Crim­i­nal Cas­es at Brest Region­al Court upheld the deci­sion of the first instance court with­out changes.

INDEXES AND RATING LISTS

Belarus held the 153^rd posi­tion among 180 states of the world in the annu­al 2019 World Press Free­dom Index, pub­lished by the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion ‘Reporters with­out Bor­ders’ in April 2019. https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2019# This year, the coun­try man­aged to climb two posi­tions high­er in com­par­i­son with the pre­vi­ous year.

“Belarus’s posi­tion in the 2019 World Press free­dom Index seems to sug­gest an improve­ment but, in real­i­ty, it reflects the fact that the sit­u­a­tion has wors­ened dra­mat­i­cal­ly in so many oth­er coun­tries, as well as the fact that the record num­ber of arrests in Belarus in 2017 was not repeat­ed in 2018.”

As before, the inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion Free­dom House con­tin­ued to clas­si­fy the Repub­lic of Belarus as a non-free, but not the worst case coun­try in its annu­al Free­dom in the World 2019 rat­ing list. How­ev­er, accord­ing to the Free­dom House experts’ con­clu­sions, the degree of mass media free­dom in Belarus shrank to the min­i­mum lev­el in 2018.

“The score declined from 1 to 0 due to a crack­down on jour­nal­ists that includ­ed new restric­tions on online media, a crim­i­nal case against jour­nal­ists accused of ille­gal­ly obtain­ing con­tent from the state news agency, and the fre­quent deten­tion and issu­ing of fines against reporters in con­nec­tion with their work”. The Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists (CPJ) has placed Belarus on the 9^th posi­tion in the list of coun­tries with the strictest cen­sor­ship in the world.

E‑NEWSLETTER ‘MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS’ #1 (60) 2020. RESULTS OF THE YEAR 2019