MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS. E‑NEWSLETTER № 4 (66) 2021. Restriction on the print media activities

Down­load PDF

General information

The gen­er­al sit­u­a­tion in the Belaru­sian media sec­tor has crit­i­cal­ly aggra­vat­ed since the day of Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion a year ago. Mass media and jour­nal­ists have suf­fered from the unprece­dent­ed wave of repres­sion. The Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were detained more than 500 times by the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of law-enforce­ment agen­cies after the elec­tion. More than 130 col­leagues were sen­tenced to dif­fer­ent terms of admin­is­tra­tive arrest. 68 col­leagues were attacked or wound­ed. Over 60 mass media rep­re­sen­ta­tives were pros­e­cut­ed on crim­i­nal charges. As of Octo­ber 3, 2021, 29 of them were impris­oned or kept in tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­ters.

Dozens of legal enti­ties of media orga­ni­za­tions have been liq­ui­dat­ed or are in the process of liq­ui­da­tion. The infor­ma­tion prod­ucts of mass media, Web-sites, and blog­gers have been broad­ly rec­og­nized as extrem­ist with the con­se­quent ban on their dis­tri­b­u­tion by oth­er actors in the media field.   

Around 140 search­es and inspec­tions have been con­duct­ed at the offices of the major­i­ty of inde­pen­dent nation­al and region­al media orga­ni­za­tions as well as at the apart­ments of their employ­ees. They were accom­pa­nied with the seizure of tech­ni­cal equip­ment, doc­u­ments, and cash.

The author­i­ties have restrict­ed access to more than 100 socio-polit­i­cal Web-sites and the Web-sites of media out­lets. The major­i­ty of nation­al and region­al news­pa­pers were forced to ter­mi­nate their pub­lish­ing in the print ver­sion. How­ev­er, they con­tin­ued to be pub­lished online. The sup­port­ing media orga­ni­za­tions were per­se­cut­ed, too.  Thus, the author­i­ties deprived over 270 NGOs of their legal sta­tus, includ­ing the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Belaru­sian PEN Cen­ter, led by Noble Prize win­ner Svi­at­lana Alek­siye­vich.

The Press Club Belarus offi­ceres suf­fered from repres­sion as well. The non-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion was liq­ui­dat­ed, too.

The pres­sure on mass media and their employ­ees con­tin­ues and grows.

 RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRINT MEDIA ACTIVITIES (January – November 2021)

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ued to restrict the activ­i­ty of inde­pen­dent print media, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the mass media, report­ing on socio-polit­i­cal issues.

Thus, in 2020, the media out­lets were deprived of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to print and dis­trib­ute their print-runs. In 2021, these restric­tions were sup­ple­ment­ed with the pres­sure on the part of the police and pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion bod­ies as well as legal pro­ceed­ings against the media out­lets and their employ­ees. More­over, as a result of the adopt­ed amend­ments to the Belarus Law ‘On Mass Media’, addi­tion­al restric­tions were intro­duced on the estab­lish­ment, reg­is­tra­tion, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of Belaru­sian and for­eign media. Thus, e.g., the peo­ple, who have been rec­og­nized as mem­bers of the alleged­ly ‘extrem­ist’ orga­ni­za­tions, can­not become founders of mass media with­in five years since the moment of this recog­ni­tion.

Mass media pro­duc­tion could be ter­mi­nat­ed by a court deci­sion before the amend­ments to the law came into force.  How­ev­er, present­ly, it can be done by the deci­sion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion, among oth­er, ground­ed on two or more offi­cial writ­ten warn­ings of the Min­istry to the respec­tive media out­let.[1]

Obstacles to the independent press printing and distribution

Since the sum­mer of 2020, the state-owned print­ing hous­es have refused to print the lead­ing non-state news­pa­pers ‘Nar­o­d­naya Volya’, ‘Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus’, ‘Svo­bod­nye Novosti Plus’, and ‘Bel­gaze­ta’.  ‘Nar­o­d­naya Volya’ and ‘Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus’ start­ed pub­lish­ing their cir­cu­la­tions out­side Belarus. How­ev­er, the de-fac­to monop­o­list state-owned retail sales net­works of press dis­trib­u­tors ‘Bel­posh­ta’ and ‘Bel­sayuz­druk’ refused to sell the news­pa­pers, despite the pres­ence of exist­ing con­tracts.

The fol­low­ing media out­lets ter­mi­nat­ed pub­li­ca­tion of their peri­od­i­cals in the print ver­sion in 2021: ‘Brest­skaya Gaze­ta’[2], ‘Leader-Press’ (Sal­i­horsk)[3], ‘Intex-press’ news­pa­per (Baranavichy)[4], ‘Inform-progul­ka’ news­pa­per (Luninets)[5], ‘Rehiyanal­naya gaze­ta’ (Mal­adziech­na)[6] and ‘Novy Chas’[7]. As a rule, this step was pre­ced­ed by the refusal of ‘Bel­sayuz­druk’ to dis­trib­ute the print media through its net­work and the exclu­sion of the print media from the ‘Bel­posh­ta’ sub­scrip­tion cat­a­logues.

‘Gaze­ta Slonim­skaya’ and ‘Otdushi­na’ news­pa­pers (Slonim, Hrod­na region) could­n’t resume their pub­li­ca­tion after the sus­pen­sion of activ­i­ty, fol­low­ing a search and the seizure of tech­ni­cal equip­ment in Novem­ber 2020. On May 24, 2021, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion includ­ed both news­pa­pers into the Reg­is­ter of print mass media. How­ev­er, the print­ing hous­es refused to print their cir­cu­la­tions.[8]

The ‘Nar­o­d­naya Volya’ news­pa­per tried repeat­ed­ly to arrange the print­ing of its issues in Rus­sia, all in vain. The con­tracts were can­celled sub­ject to interef­er­ence from the author­i­ties.[9] ‘Bel­posh­ta’ made use of this sit­u­a­tion to sue ‘Nar­o­d­naya Volya’ for reim­burse­ment of costs for the news­pa­per copies, which had­n’t been received since August 2020. The amount to be paid was pro­nounced by the Eco­nom­ic Court of Min­sk at the end of Octo­ber 2021. It totaled 108,000 Belaru­sian rubles (over USD 42,000).[10]

On Decem­ber 1, 2021, it was report­ed that the OJSC ‘Brest Print­ing House’ refused to print the region­al ‘Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas’ news­pa­per.[11]

The mag­a­zines ‘Our His­to­ry’, ‘Atten­tion, Chil­dren!’, and ‘Duda’ were deprived of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dis­tri­b­u­tion through the state-owned sales net­works.[12]

Hav­ing lost the pos­si­bil­i­ty to pub­lish the print ver­sions of news­pa­pers, most media out­lets con­tin­ued their activ­i­ty online.

The ‘Leader-Press’ news­pa­per was pub­lished in Sal­i­horsk (Min­sk region) dur­ing 28 years. The media out­let ter­mi­nat­ed its activ­i­ty on Octo­ber 1, 2021. A range of search­es was con­duct­ed at the edi­to­r­i­al office and at the own­ers’ apart­ments in the sum­mer of 2021. The edi­to­r­i­al addressed the news­pa­per read­ers as fol­lows: ‘It looks like any mate­r­i­al that truth­ful­ly cov­ers the events in the region or in the coun­try can be declared extrem­ist with all the ensu­ing con­se­quences. In this sit­u­a­tion, we can­not put our employ­ees at risk. There­fore, we are forced to ter­mi­nate the activ­i­ty of our media out­let.’[13]

The pub­li­ca­tion of ‘Verasen’ lit­er­ary mag­a­zine was ter­mi­nat­ed with­in the peri­od under review, since its founder — ‘The Belaru­sian Lan­guage Soci­ety’ was deprived of offi­cial reg­is­tra­tion.[14]

Persecution of distributors of unregistered periodical editions

The ter­mi­na­tion of inde­pen­dent print media pub­lish­ing was accom­pa­nied by the emer­gence of unreg­is­tered pub­li­ca­tions, pro­duced by activists, and main­ly con­tain­ing reprints of mate­ri­als from inde­pen­dent news Web-sites.

The peo­ple involved in dis­trib­ut­ing such news­pa­pers were pros­e­cut­ed and pun­ished with fines in Jan­u­ary – March 2021.

Thus, Yury Lak­t­siy­onau was fined 638 Belaru­sian rubles for dis­trib­ut­ing the copies of a small cir­cu­la­tion news­pa­per ‘Grod­nen­skoye Vremia’ (‘Hrod­na Time’) in Hrod­na on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2021. The peri­od­i­cal was dis­trib­uted free of charge in the mail­box­es. (16 issues of ‘Grod­nen­skoye Vremia’ have been pub­lished since August 2020.)[15]

Eight dis­trib­u­tors were detained in Mahilou in Jan­u­ary – Feb­ru­ary 2021. All of them were engaged in pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of ‘Mogilevskye vesti’ unreg­is­tered news­pa­per. 2,000 copies of this news­pa­per were seized from one of the press dis­trib­u­tors Aleh Pakhy­ly.[16] Most of the detained press dis­trib­u­tors were fined.

Dzmit­ry Shashk­ou was detained while trans­port­ing 4,000 copies of this news­pa­per on Feb­ru­ary 11, 2021. He was sen­tenced to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest, alleged­ly, for dis­obe­di­ence to the police, and fined 1,450 Belaru­sian rubles.[17]

Tat­siana Yukho was detained and fined for dis­trib­ut­ing the ‘Vit­sieb­sky Ves­nik’ unreg­is­tered peri­od­i­cal edi­tion in Vit­sieb­sk on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2021. The police seized 500 copies of the digest at her pri­vate apart­ment.[18]

Report­ed­ly, two res­i­dents of Min­sk dis­trict were detained in March 2021. 15,000 copies of ‘protest news­pa­pers’ were found in the pri­vate car of one of them, who was active as the Web-admin­is­tra­tor of ‘Atoli­na’ Telegram chan­nel. Accord­ing to the Legal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mit­tee, the sec­ond detainee was the direc­tor of a pri­vate print­ing house, deal­ing with pro­duc­tion of adver­tis­ing mate­ri­als. The offi­cials accused the detainee of pro­duc­ing more than 21,000 copies of ‘rad­i­cal’ news­pa­pers as well as more than 10,000 copies of leaflets to be dis­sem­i­nat­ed in the city of Min­sk and on the ter­ri­to­ries of Mahilou, Min­sk, Homiel, and Hrod­na regions. Fol­low­ing the legal inves­ti­ga­tion, the peo­ple’s activ­i­ty on pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of infor­ma­tion mate­ri­als was rec­og­nized as crim­i­nal in line of arti­cle 361 of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code (‘calls for actions, aimed at caus­ing harm to the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus’).[19]

Repressions against the print press representatives

The employ­ees of inde­pen­dent print media were sub­ject­ed to pres­sure from the gov­ern­men­tal author­i­ties, the police, and the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion bod­ies.

Thus, on March 24, 2021, Piotr Huza­yeus­ki, the Edi­tor-in-chief of ‘Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas’ inde­pen­dent region­al news­pa­per and two cor­re­spon­dents Siarhei Bahrou and Ali­ak­san­dr Paz­ni­ak were sum­moned to the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor’s office, where offi­cial warn­ings were pro­nounced to Bahrou and Paz­ni­ak.[20]

The ‘Novy Chas’ news­pa­per received a warn­ing from the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion on March 25, 2021. It was issued for pub­lish­ing four arti­cles that alleged­ly con­tained infor­ma­tion that ‘con­tributed to caus­ing harm to the nation­al inter­ests of the Repub­lic of Belarus.’[21]

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s office issued anoth­er warn­ing to the news­pa­per Edi­tor-in-chief in May 2021. It was pre­sent­ed in con­nec­tion to the fact that the authors of some pub­li­ca­tions ‘used cer­tain expres­sions and phras­es that con­tributed to the height­en­ing of ten­sion in soci­ety as well as incite­ment of hatred and enmi­ty against gov­ern­men­tal offi­cials and law enforce­ment offi­cers as sep­a­rate social groups.’[22]

The ‘Intex-press’ region­al news­pa­per from Baranavichy (Brest region) suf­fered from per­se­cu­tion for pub­lish­ing an inter­view with Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya on April 14, 2021. The news­pa­per Edi­tor-in-chief Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich received a warn­ing from the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor’s office on the fol­low­ing day.[23] Then, he was fined the max­i­mum pos­si­ble sum for ‘vio­lat­ing the mass media leg­is­la­tion’ – 580 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. USD 240).[24] In addi­tion, the ‘Intex-press’ Pub­lish­ing house was fined 4,350 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. USD 1,780) lat­er on.[25]

Fol­low­ing the claim, filed by the Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor’s office, the pub­lished inter­view with Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya and its video record­ing were offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized as extrem­ist mate­ri­als.[26]

Anoth­er series of search­es was con­duct­ed at the edi­to­r­i­al offices of inde­pen­dent media and jour­nal­ists’ pri­vate apart­ments in July 2021. They were accom­pa­nied with inter­ro­ga­tions and seizure of tech­ni­cal equip­ment. Con­se­quent­ly, a num­ber of region­al news­pa­pers ceized to be pub­lished in the print­ed form.[27]

A series of search­es took place at the ‘Novy Chas’ edi­to­r­i­al office as well as at the news­pa­per employ­ees’ pri­vate apart­ments in Octo­ber 2021.[28]

Henadzi Mazhey­ka, a jour­nal­ist of ‘Kom­so­mol­skaya prav­da in Belarus’ was detained by spe­cial ser­vices in Moscow and deport­ed to Min­sk on Octo­ber 1, 2021. The deten­tion was rea­soned by the pub­li­ca­tion of his arti­cle on the www.kp.by Web-site in the evening of Sep­tem­ber 28, 2021. The pub­li­ca­tion con­tained a for­mer class­mate’s pos­i­tive remark about the IT spe­cial­ist Andrei Zeltser, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a trag­ic inci­dent that cost lives to a KGB offi­cer and Zeltser. Although the edi­to­r­i­al delet­ed the text in a cou­ple of min­utes after its pub­li­ca­tion online, the Web-site www.kp.by was blocked for access on deci­sion of Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus on the fol­low­ing day. Alleged­ly, the pub­li­ca­tion ‘con­tributed to form­ing the sources of threats to the nation­al secu­ri­ty’.

Henadzi Mazhey­ka was tak­en into cus­tody. He was pre­sent­ed charges under two arti­cles of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus – arti­cle 130 (‘incit­ing racial, nation­al, reli­gious or oth­er social hos­til­i­ty or hatred’) and arti­cle 369 (‘insult­ing a gov­ern­ment offi­cial’).

Con­se­quent­ly, the Russ­ian office of ‘Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da’ decid­ed to close its rep­re­sen­ta­tive office CJSC ‘BelKP-PRESS’ that had pub­lished the ‘Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus’ news­pa­per since 1994.[29]