Human Rights Watch. Belarus: Crackdown on Independent Journalism

The crack­down on jour­nal­ists is part of the government’s efforts to silence media report­ing on human rights vio­la­tions and peace­ful, coun­try­wide protests. Pro­test­ers have been demand­ing fair elec­tions and jus­tice for abus­es since August 9, 2020, when the offi­cial results of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion were announced.

“Instead of ensur­ing jus­tice for sweep­ing police bru­tal­i­ty and oth­er abus­es, Belaru­sian author­i­ties are pros­e­cut­ing jour­nal­ists report­ing on sen­si­tive issues,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Cen­tral Asia direc­tor at Human Rights Watch. “The author­i­ties should guar­an­tee that all jour­nal­ists in Belarus are able to car­ry out their work with­out fear of reprisals and with­out abu­sive restric­tions.”

Human Rights Watch inter­viewed 19 inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists report­ing on Belarus, their lawyers, and rel­a­tives.

Reporters with­out Bor­ders, an inde­pen­dent media rights group, has called Belarus Europe’s most dan­ger­ous coun­try for jour­nal­ists due to the gov­ern­ment repres­sion against inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists peace­ful­ly doing their legit­i­mate work.

Sev­er­al jour­nal­ists told Human Rights Watch that “press” vests felt like a tar­get on their backs rather than a sym­bol of pro­tec­tion.

Between late Sep­tem­ber and March, Belaru­sian author­i­ties opened at least 18 crim­i­nal cas­es against jour­nal­ists, appar­ent­ly in reprisal for their work. Three jour­nal­ists – Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va), and Darya Chultso­va – were sen­tenced to prison terms rang­ing from six months to two years. Sev­en jour­nal­ists – Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Yulia Slut­skaya, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Ala Sharko, Piotr Slut­sky, Kseniya Lut­ski­na, and Dzia­n­is Ivashyn – are await­ing tri­al behind bars on crim­i­nal charges of vio­lat­ing pub­lic order, tax eva­sion, and inter­fer­ing with police work. One jour­nal­ist is under house arrest, accused of insult­ing the pres­i­dent.

The author­i­ties coerced lawyers rep­re­sent­ing many of these jour­nal­ists into sign­ing vague­ly word­ed non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments, bar­ring them from shar­ing any infor­ma­tion about their clients’ cas­es. Sev­er­al lawyers who in sim­i­lar cas­es refused to sign have faced dis­bar­ment.

Belaru­sian author­i­ties should imme­di­ate­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly free Andreye­va, Chultso­va, and Bary­se­vich, and quash the ver­dicts against them, and free Slut­skaya, Slut­sky, Sharko, Alsheus­ki, Lut­ski­na, Ali­ak­san­drou and Ivashyn and drop all charges against them.

In some crim­i­nal cas­es involv­ing bogus charges, the author­i­ties have des­ig­nat­ed jour­nal­ists as wit­ness­es and then pro­ceed­ed to sub­ject them to police and judi­cial harass­ment. The jour­nal­ists report­ed being sum­moned for police ques­tion­ing, threat­ened with crim­i­nal charges, and sub­ject­ed to home and office search­es and seizure of their equip­ment. At least one news­pa­per had to tem­porar­i­ly close due to a threat of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, raids, and con­fis­cat­ed equip­ment.

On Feb­ru­ary 16, law enforce­ment offi­cials car­ried out a nation­wide wave of raids, tar­get­ing human rights groups and at least five jour­nal­ists and seiz­ing their devices. Offi­cials said the raids were part of a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into unsanc­tioned protests and appear to equate pro­vid­ing legal assis­tance to detained pro­test­ers with orga­niz­ing protests.

The raids also tar­get­ed the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), a human rights orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ing assis­tance to jour­nal­ists in Belarus. In March, the author­i­ties ques­tioned the group’s leader, Andrey Bas­tunets, and its deputy direc­tor, Barys Haret­s­ki, as wit­ness­es in a case. Bas­tunets had pre­vi­ous­ly been ques­tioned as a wit­ness in Decem­ber in rela­tion to anoth­er inves­ti­ga­tion into alleged calls for action aimed at dam­ag­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of Belarus. There are seri­ous and cred­i­ble con­cerns that the Feb­ru­ary raids fore­shad­ow poten­tial new bogus crim­i­nal charges against jour­nal­ists.

Belaru­sian author­i­ties wrong­ly equate report­ing on unau­tho­rized demon­stra­tions with par­tic­i­pa­tion in them, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the reporter works for an out­let that the author­i­ties refuse to grant accred­i­ta­tion, Human Rights Watch said. In Decem­ber, Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Igor Lut­skiy went so far as to claim that Belarus is fight­ing an infor­ma­tion war aimed at destroy­ing the state, smear­ing inde­pen­dent media work­ing in the coun­try.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists said that between August 2020 and March 2021, the author­i­ties detained about 400 jour­nal­ists on admin­is­tra­tive charges. At least 100 were giv­en short admin­is­tra­tive jail terms between Decem­ber and March, while oth­ers were fined on admin­is­tra­tive charges of “vio­lat­ing the rules on mass gath­er­ings,” “dis­obey­ing the police,” and “vio­lat­ing the laws on mass media.”

At least four jour­nal­ists told Human Rights Watch that they were ill-treat­ed dur­ing and after deten­tion. They were bru­tal­ly beat­en, denied med­ical assis­tance, and held in poor deten­tion con­di­tions. Some said their equip­ment was destroyed.

In recent months, Belaru­sian author­i­ties deport­ed at least two jour­nal­ists with Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship, appar­ent­ly in retal­i­a­tion for their work in Belarus.

The author­i­ties threat­ened to deprive at least three jour­nal­ists of cus­tody of their chil­dren. All three fled Belarus with their fam­i­lies.

The author­i­ties also warned media out­lets about alleged mis­takes in their report­ing and crit­i­cism of the gov­ern­ment. At least one media out­let was unjust­ly stripped of its media cre­den­tials for vio­lat­ing the media law.

Belaru­sian state-owned print­ing hous­es refused to print at least five inde­pen­dent news­pa­pers. At least one news­pa­per that switched to print­ing on its own said that on one occa­sion, law enforce­ment con­fis­cat­ed an entire print run with­out any legal doc­u­ments sanc­tion­ing such action.

On Octo­ber 2, the For­eign Affairs Min­istry adopt­ed new rules on for­eign media accred­i­ta­tion in Belarus, can­cel­ing all exist­ing accred­i­ta­tions and mak­ing the accred­i­ta­tion process sig­nif­i­cant­ly more com­pli­cat­ed.

On March 24, the Unit­ed Nations Human Rights Coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing the “arbi­trary arrests and deten­tion of oppo­si­tion mem­bers, jour­nal­ists and media work­ers,” and the “prison sen­tences hand­ed down to media work­ers for per­form­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties” and call­ing for the imme­di­ate release of “all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, jour­nal­ists and oth­er media work­ers.” Belarus’ inter­na­tion­al part­ners should con­tin­ue to press the gov­ern­ment to end threats, attacks, and reprisals against jour­nal­ists and should call for those respon­si­ble for grave vio­la­tions, includ­ing tor­ture and ill-treat­ment, to be held account­able, Human Rights Watch said. They should also con­tin­ue to pro­tect jour­nal­ists, includ­ing by pro­vid­ing greater assis­tance to jour­nal­ists under threat.

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties should respect free­dom of expres­sion and assem­bly, Human Rights Watch said. Belarus has an oblig­a­tion under inter­na­tion­al law not to undu­ly pre­vent jour­nal­ists from doing their job, includ­ing report­ing on unsanc­tioned protests.

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties should stop pre­tend­ing that free­dom of expres­sion is a threat to nation­al secu­ri­ty,” Williamson said. “They should drop bogus crim­i­nal charges and imme­di­ate­ly free those behind bars. They should stop pros­e­cut­ing, harass­ing, and oth­er­wise pres­sur­ing jour­nal­ists who are car­ry­ing out their work.”

For detailed accounts, please see below.

Crim­i­nal Charges

Breach­ing Med­ical Con­fi­den­tial­i­ty (Arti­cle 178)

On Novem­ber 19, the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s office opened a crim­i­nal case against a TUT.BY jour­nal­ist, Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, and Art­siom Sorokin, a doc­tor, who spoke up about Raman Ban­daren­ka, a protest activist beat­en to death in Novem­ber in Min­sk, alleged­ly by plain­clothes police offi­cers. After his killing sparked nation­wide protests, Belarus’ chief inves­tiga­tive agency claimed the police had found Ban­daren­ka drunk and already beat­en. Med­ical doc­u­ments leaked to TUT.BY, a major inde­pen­dent news out­let, proved he had not been intox­i­cat­ed, and videos shot the day of Bandarenka’s killing showed men chas­ing and beat­ing Ban­daren­ka and bundling him into a van.

On Novem­ber 29, Bary­se­vich and Sorokin were indict­ed for “breach­ing med­ical con­fi­den­tial­i­ty that led to grave con­se­quences.”

Bandarenka’s sis­ter said that dur­ing the tri­al, which was closed, rel­a­tives tes­ti­fied that they had giv­en Bary­se­vich per­mis­sion to pub­lish the med­ical data. But on March 2, the Moscow Dis­trict Court sen­tenced Bary­se­vich to six months in prison and a fine and hand­ed Sorokin a two-year sus­pend­ed sen­tence and a fine.

Orga­niz­ing Activ­i­ties Vio­lat­ing Pub­lic Order (Arti­cle 342)

On Novem­ber 15, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va), a jour­nal­ist with the Poland-based broad­cast­er Bel­sat, and her col­league and cam­er­a­woman, Darya Chultso­va, livestreamed a protest in Min­sk demand­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into Bandarenka’s death. They ran the livestream from an apart­ment with the own­ers’ per­mis­sion. Two days lat­er, a court sen­tenced them to sev­en days in deten­tion on admin­is­tra­tive charges of “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unsanc­tioned mass gath­er­ing” because they livestreamed the gath­er­ing. On Novem­ber 20, the author­i­ties opened a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion against them on charges of coor­di­nat­ing “activ­i­ties vio­lat­ing pub­lic order,” and the women remain in cus­tody.

On Feb­ru­ary 19, a court sen­tenced Andreye­va and Chultso­va to two years in prison.

On Jan­u­ary 12, police searched the house of Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, a jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er, con­fis­cat­ed equip­ment and mon­ey, and arrest­ed him and his part­ner, Iri­na Zlobi­na, on crim­i­nal charges of “orga­niz­ing activ­i­ties vio­lat­ing pub­lic order.” On Jan­u­ary 14, inves­ti­ga­tors also searched the office of Bela­PAN, the out­let where Ali­ak­san­drau worked as a con­sul­tant, seiz­ing equip­ment.

On Jan­u­ary 15,  First Deputy Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Gen­nady Kaza­ke­vich claimed that Ali­ak­san­drau and Zlobi­na had been financ­ing pro­test­ers by pay­ing their fines with mon­ey from BYHELP, a fund estab­lished to assist vic­tims of repres­sion in Belarus.

On Jan­u­ary 21, the inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee indict­ed Ali­ak­san­drau and Zlobi­na. The cou­ple remains in cus­tody pend­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion. If con­vict­ed, they face a max­i­mum three-year prison sen­tence.

Tax Eva­sion (Arti­cle 243)

On Decem­ber 22, police detained five employ­ees of the Belarus Press Club, an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to pro­tect press free­doms, in rela­tion to a crim­i­nal tax eva­sion inves­ti­ga­tion. The author­i­ties searched and seized com­put­ers and phones from the group’s office and homes of its founder, Yulia Slut­skaya; its finan­cial direc­tor, Siarhei Alsheus­ki; and two pro­gram direc­tors, Sergei Yakupov and Ala Sharko.

On Decem­ber 31, Slut­skaya, Alsheus­ki, Sharko, and cam­era­man Piotr Slut­sky were charged with “grand tax eva­sion,” and they remain in pre­tri­al cus­tody. Yakupov, a Russ­ian cit­i­zen, was deport­ed to Rus­sia that day and for­bid­den entry to Belarus for 10 years.

Also on Decem­ber 31, mass media report­ed that the author­i­ties indict­ed Kseniya Lut­ski­na, a jour­nal­ist, on charges of aid­ing tax eva­sion. A week ear­li­er, police had searched her home, seized her elec­tron­ic devices, and detained her. She remains in cus­tody.

Lut­ski­na worked at Belarus One, the state tele­vi­sion chan­nel, but quit in August and joined the Coor­di­na­tion Coun­cil, the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion body. Lut­ski­na helped the Press Club cre­ate an online alter­na­tive to state tele­vi­sion. The project was sched­uled to begin oper­at­ing in Jan­u­ary, but it did not.

Insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of Belarus (Arti­cle 368)
On Decem­ber 22, law enforce­ment offi­cers detained Siarhei Hardziye­vich, a jour­nal­ist with 1reg.by, an inde­pen­dent out­let that cov­ers news in the Brest region. They searched his home and con­fis­cat­ed all devices for alleged­ly insult­ing the pres­i­dent in a mes­sage to a pub­lic Viber group with 5,000 mem­bers. On Decem­ber 25, the police placed him under house arrest. On Decem­ber 31, he was indict­ed. If con­vict­ed, Hardziye­vich faces a max­i­mum two-year prison sen­tence.

The author­i­ties sum­moned the edi­tor of 1reg.by, Pavel Daylid, on Decem­ber 24 for ques­tion­ing about the case, which 1reg.by had cov­ered. After Daylid left the police sta­tion, he real­ized that the Viber group he admin­is­tered, where Hardziye­vich had alleged­ly post­ed the insult, had been delet­ed from his smart­phone, which had been in a lock­er at the police sta­tion dur­ing the inter­ro­ga­tion. In March, the inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee refused to inves­ti­gate the inci­dent. On Decem­ber 29 police searched the home and seized the lap­top of Piotr Huza­yeus­ki, chief edi­tor of 1reg.by and “Hantsav­it­sky chas” news­pa­per, as well as the office these two media out­lets share. In Jan­u­ary, police searched the homes of two more 1reg.by jour­nal­ists in con­nec­tion with the case.

Libel (Arti­cle 188)
On Sep­tem­ber 23, law enforce­ment offi­cers searched the apart­ment of Yahor Martsi­novich, chief edi­tor of the long­stand­ing week­ly news­pa­per Nasha Niva, seiz­ing his lap­top, phone, and mem­o­ry sticks. Martsi­novich told Human Rights Watch that the police ques­tioned him and trans­ferred to Okresti­na deten­tion cen­ter and released him on Sep­tem­ber 26. The police noti­fied him he was a sus­pect in con­nec­tion with a crim­i­nal libel case.

The inves­ti­ga­tion springs from an inter­view in Nasha Niva with Vlad Sokolovsky, one of two DJs pros­e­cut­ed for play­ing the song “We Want a Change!” at a pub­lic event before the August 9 elec­tion. In the inter­view, Sokolovsky alleged that the first deputy inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Alek­sander Bar­sukov, had punched him twice when he was in deten­tion. In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, inves­ti­ga­tors sum­moned Martsi­novich for ques­tion­ing, demand­ing that he reveal the author of the arti­cle. He has refused.

Grave Hooli­gan­ism (Arti­cle 339)
On 20 Jan­u­ary, Yury Dzi­ashuk, a free­lance jour­nal­ist, was detained for 72 hours in Lida and charged with “dis­turb­ing pub­lic order” for alleged­ly shout­ing in a court­room. Two days ear­li­er, Dzi­ashuk was film­ing at the tri­al of an activist, Vitold Ashurko, when spec­ta­tors start­ed shout­ing “Shame!” in response to Ashurko’s sen­tence. A video clip from the court­room cap­tured Dzi­ashuk film­ing the room, and when his face is vis­i­ble he is not shout­ing. Sev­er­al observers were detained for shout­ing, but Human Rights Watch does not have infor­ma­tion as to whether they face crim­i­nal charges.

Inter­fer­ence with the Work of a Law Enforce­ment Offi­cer (Arti­cle 365)
On March 12, law enforce­ment offi­cers detained Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist work­ing with Navy Chas news­pa­per, and searched his apart­ment, seiz­ing all his devices. The police also searched the homes of his moth­er and grand­moth­er. Ivashyn’s wife told Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists that the search war­rant was issued on alle­ga­tions of spread­ing an officer’s per­son­al data. Although no one could con­firm the basis for the charge, it is pos­si­bly con­nect­ed to Ivashyn’s last pub­lished arti­cle about for­mer Ukrain­ian «Berkut» (riot police) offi­cers work­ing in Belaru­sian law enforce­ment. On March 19, Ivashyn was indict­ed and will be held for at least two months in pre­tri­al deten­tion.

Beat­ings and Ill-Treat­ment in Deten­tion

On Octo­ber 9, law enforce­ment offi­cers detained a REFORM.by jour­nal­ist, Evgeniya Dol­gaya, next to her house, in front of her eight-year-old daugh­ter. She said that the police ques­tioned Dol­gaya about her work as a jour­nal­ist, threat­ened her with crim­i­nal charges, and issued her a cita­tion for alleged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in two unsanc­tioned mass protests, one of which she was report­ing on. Dol­gaya said she spent at least two days in a cold cell, await­ing tri­al. She was not giv­en a mat­tress, pil­low, or a blan­ket until the fol­low­ing evening:

The nurse checked my blood pres­sure in the neigh­bor­ing emp­ty cell that was packed with mat­tress­es, pil­lows, and blan­kets. And I was told, “You are not allowed [to have them].”

While she was in deten­tion, an uniden­ti­fied offi­cial ques­tion­ing Dol­gaya accused her of being a bad moth­er and threat­ened that her daugh­ter would be sent to an orphan­age. On Octo­ber 12, after she was fined, a court released her and Dol­gaya fled Belarus fear­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion in retal­i­a­tion for her work.

On Novem­ber 1, a Novy Chas pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Dmit­ry Dmitriyev, was report­ing on a peace­ful Sun­day protest in Min­sk when offi­cers in civil­ian clothes, mil­i­tary vests, and hel­mets bru­tal­ly detained him, push­ing him to the ground. They took Dmitriyev to a police vehi­cle, where riot police offi­cers beat and kicked him. He said he was lat­er diag­nosed with a per­fo­rat­ed eardrum and a severe ear infec­tion that result­ed from it:

The entire time I had my “press” badge dan­gling around my neck, and I kept show­ing it to them, but they react­ed with a fair amount of pro­fan­i­ty. They said they did not care, to put it mild­ly.

When police took Dmitriyev to the sta­tion, he reit­er­at­ed that he was a jour­nal­ist and asked to noti­fy the Cen­tral Inter­nal Affairs Department’s press ser­vice about his deten­tion. The police claimed the department’s response was that they should pros­e­cute him.

Lat­er that day, the inves­ti­ga­tor noti­fied Dmitriyev that he was a sus­pect in a crim­i­nal case on vio­lat­ing pub­lic order charges in rela­tion to the protest he was report­ing on. On Novem­ber 2, he was sen­tenced to 10 days in deten­tion for vio­lat­ing admin­is­tra­tive rules on mass gath­er­ings and dis­obey­ing the police. A few days after his release, police searched his apart­ment in rela­tion to the crim­i­nal case. On March 4, the inves­ti­ga­tor ques­tioned him again. The inves­ti­ga­tion is pend­ing.

On Novem­ber 1, a Bel­sat cam­era­man, Dmit­ry Soltan, was report­ing on the same protest, wear­ing a press vest, when the police knocked him down, kick­ing and beat­ing him with trun­cheons while the cam­era con­tin­ued record­ing. The offi­cers destroyed the cam­era and con­fis­cat­ed the mem­o­ry card. Soltan was lat­er diag­nosed with a dis­lo­cat­ed clav­i­cle, torn lig­a­ments in the left shoul­der, and bruis­es on the head.

On Novem­ber 2, a court in Min­sk sen­tenced Soltan to 13 days in deten­tion for vio­lat­ing rules on mass gath­er­ings and dis­obey­ing the police for report­ing on the Novem­ber 1 protest. He was also noti­fied that he was a sus­pect in a crim­i­nal case on charges of orga­niz­ing activ­i­ties vio­lat­ing pub­lic order.

On Feb­ru­ary 8, the police again detained Soltan, togeth­er with a Bel­sat jour­nal­ist, Liubov Lunio­va, when they were inter­view­ing passers-by in Min­sk. Both were charged with hooli­gan­ism and sen­tenced to 15 and 10 days in deten­tion, respec­tive­ly, for alleged­ly insult­ing offi­cers at the sta­tion.

While serv­ing his sen­tence at Okresti­na, Soltan was tak­en for a “pre­ven­tive con­ver­sa­tion” with a prison offi­cial. Dur­ing this con­ver­sa­tion, a guard beat Dmit­ry with a trun­cheon on his low­er back and stom­ach. The offi­cial blamed Soltan for alleged­ly pro­vok­ing the guard.

Lunio­va, a jour­nal­ist with 25 years of expe­ri­ence, was pre­vi­ous­ly arrest­ed by riot police on Decem­ber 7 while report­ing on a protest in Min­sk. She felt unwell after she was tak­en to Okresti­na. But the staff only called an ambu­lance after Luniova’s cell­mates pressed the emer­gency but­ton more than five times:

Women were say­ing, “We have a jour­nal­ist, she feels unwell. Call the ambu­lance.” And the guard replied, “Yeah, but she was not feel­ing bad when going to the [protest on the] square? So just let her croak.”

When she final­ly was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal, Lunio­va was diag­nosed with a hyper­ten­sive cri­sis. On Decem­ber 28, after two weeks of treat­ment, a court sen­tenced her to a fine for “vio­lat­ing the rules on pub­lic gath­er­ings.”

Judi­cial and Police Harass­ment

On Novem­ber 9, a Slonim inves­ti­ga­tor noti­fied Anna Volo­dashchuk, pub­lish­er of Slonim­skaya news­pa­per, that she was a wit­ness in a crim­i­nal case on insult­ing a pub­lic offi­cial on a Telegram chan­nel. Inves­ti­ga­tors searched her apart­ment, seiz­ing lap­tops and mem­o­ry sticks, she said. Law enforce­ment offi­cials also raid­ed the newspaper’s office that day, and seized all the equip­ment.. Volo­dashchuk said she did not know what the alleged insult was. She tem­porar­i­ly fled Belarus, fear­ing pros­e­cu­tion.

In Novem­ber, the news­pa­per announced it was clos­ing tem­porar­i­ly after 24 years of work due to pres­sure from the author­i­ties. The newspaper’s staff con­tin­ues to pub­lish online, Volo­dashchuk said:

[After the death of] the chief edi­tor, pub­lish­er, and my hus­band Vik­tor Volo­dashchuk, my son and I have been lead­ing this busi­ness togeth­er – our news­pa­per, our brain­child… which was tak­en from us in one day. Read­ers keep call­ing us, say­ing they real­ly miss the news­pa­per.

On Novem­ber 24, Belaru­sian migra­tion police deport­ed a Russ­ian cit­i­zen, Roman Pop­kov, a MBKh Media jour­nal­ist, “in the inter­ests of pub­lic secu­ri­ty.” On Novem­ber 7, law enforce­ment had detained Pop­kov while he was report­ing on a women’s protest in Min­sk. He was lat­er sen­tenced to 15 days of deten­tion for alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unsanc­tioned mass gath­er­ing that he had filmed as a jour­nal­ist on Octo­ber 11. His wife, Ele­na Borovskaya, also a jour­nal­ist, left Belarus, fear­ing pros­e­cu­tion.

In Octo­ber, the Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions opened a tax eva­sion inves­ti­ga­tion against the own­er of the Orsha.eu web­site, Ihar Kazmer­chak, in rela­tion to a shop he owns. They searched Kazmerchak’s shop and apart­ment. On Decem­ber 30, they closed the case. But on Jan­u­ary 29, the depart­ment sum­moned for ques­tion­ing three peo­ple who were work­ing for Orsha.eu in rela­tion to a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion. Accord­ing to Orsha.eu, they were forced to sign non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments.

Strip­ping Accred­i­ta­tion or Reg­is­tra­tion

From August to Sep­tem­ber, the Infor­ma­tion Min­istry issued four warn­ings to TUT.BY for “spread­ing false infor­ma­tion” over its report­ing on such issues as elec­tion fraud and a police raid at the apart­ment of TUT.BY’s edi­tor. Under the Belarus’s Law on Mass Media, after two warn­ings in one year, a court can strip a media out­let of its accred­i­ta­tion. On Octo­ber 1, the Infor­ma­tion Min­istry sus­pend­ed TUT.BY’s accred­i­ta­tion. Court hear­ings start­ed in Novem­ber and were sus­pend­ed pend­ing TUT.BY’s appeals about the warn­ings. After TUT.BY lost these appeals, hear­ings resumed. On Decem­ber 3, a court stripped TUT.BY of its media cre­den­tials.

On Jan­u­ary 19, Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Igor Lut­sky said that the author­i­ties con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing TUT.BY’s web­site and warned that it could be blocked if it vio­lates media or oth­er laws.

On Octo­ber 2, the For­eign Min­istry adopt­ed new rules on for­eign mass media accred­i­ta­tion in Belarus and annulled all pre­vi­ous­ly issued accred­i­ta­tions. Under the new reg­u­la­tions, for­eign jour­nal­ists can work in Belarus, even on short report­ing trips, only if they are new­ly accred­it­ed. Accred­i­ta­tion is avail­able only to jour­nal­ists who are on staff at a for­eign media out­let, mak­ing it very dif­fi­cult for free­lance jour­nal­ists to work in Belarus. For­eign reporters must be cit­i­zens of the coun­try where their media employ­er is reg­is­tered, pos­ing chal­lenges for some inter­na­tion­al media out­lets.

All jour­nal­ists with­out media cre­den­tials in Belarus risk admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for orga­niz­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in mass gath­er­ings on which they are in fact report­ing and risk pros­e­cu­tion for “ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of mass media prod­ucts.” Media out­lets with­out accred­i­ta­tion are also banned from cov­er­ing state-orga­nized events.

Print and Post Sub­scrip­tion Refusals

In Octo­ber, Belaru­sian Post, the country’s postal ser­vice, refused to include in 2021 sub­scrip­tion pack­ets the inde­pen­dent news out­lets Bel­Gaze­ta, Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da v Belarusi, Nar­o­d­naya Volya, and Svo­bod­niye Novosti Plius. Postal sub­scrip­tions are a prime source of income for print media in Belarus. In August, the state-owned Belaru­sian Print House refused to print these out­lets, alleged­ly due to tech­ni­cal issues.

On Novem­ber 13, the deputy chief edi­tor of Nar­o­d­naya Volya stat­ed that riot police con­fis­cat­ed all print copies of the news­pa­per. In Decem­ber, Belaru­sian Post sued Nar­o­d­naya Volya for fail­ing to sup­ply the print­ed issues since the end of August, when the print­ing house refused to print the news­pa­per, despite the Nar­o­d­naya Volya offered to sup­ply their issues print­ed by a pri­vate print­ing house.

On Novem­ber 11, the Brest print­ing house stat­ed that it would refuse to print Brest­skaya Gaze­ta start­ing Jan­u­ary 1 after 18 years of coop­er­a­tion, alleged­ly for tech­ni­cal rea­sons. All oth­er Belaru­sian print­ing hous­es, the vast major­i­ty of which are state-owned, also refused to print the news­pa­per. This forced the out­let to switch to online report­ing, caus­ing it to lose 70 per­cent of its income. Since the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, Brest­skaya Gazeta’s employ­ees also faced arbi­trary deten­tions, online threats, and police harass­ment:

Even now peo­ple keep call­ing us, ask­ing whether the news­pa­per will get print­ed. They say, “We are wor­ried about you, hold on there. We are wait­ing for you.