MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS E‑NEWSLETTER No.1 (68) 2022 January – April 2022

Context

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ued their repres­sive poli­cies in rela­tion to the Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent mass media and jour­nal­ists by means of their admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. The aggres­sion of Rus­sia against Ukraine since Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022 was sup­port­ed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties that influ­enced the repres­sive poli­cies. Among oth­er, the Belaru­sian regime in pow­er sup­pressed the dis­sem­i­na­tion of unbi­ased infor­ma­tion about the rea­sons and the course of mil­i­tary actions that dif­fered from the offi­cial point of view of Russ­ian author­i­ties. The dis­trib­u­tors of anti-war state­ments were per­se­cut­ed, too.

The Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media with relo­cat­ed edi­to­r­i­al teams con­tin­ued their activ­i­ties from abroad. The ‘Medi­a­Port­Be­larus’ co-work­ing opened its doors for the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists in exile in Belas­tok on Jan­u­ary 18, 2022.

https://baj.media/be/content/adkrylasya-prastora-dlya-zhurnalistau-mediaportbelarus-u-belastoku-stvorana-medyya-most

Radio Free Europe / Radio Lib­er­ty opened its news­room in Vil­nius in March 2022. It was joined by the jour­nal­ists of RFE/RL Belaru­sian Radio Ser­vice, who were forced to leave Belarus. https://www.svaboda.org/a/31757988.html

The team of ‘New Land’ Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter (BIC) received a pres­ti­gious jour­nal­ist award in Lithua­nia (along­side the Lithuan­ian Web-por­tal Siena.lt. The Future Sto­ry Award 2021 was pre­sent­ed to the media for the best inves­tiga­tive mate­r­i­al. The BIC became a full mem­ber of the Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project (OCCRP) on April 18, 2022. The inter­na­tion­al inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism net­work unites mass media from 42 states. The BIC is the first media out­let that rep­re­sents Belarus there.

https://baj.media/be/content/kamanda-belaruskaga-rassledavalnickaga-centru-atrymala-prestyzhnuyu-zhurnalisckuyu

https://baj.media/be/content/belorusskiy-rassledovatelskiy-centr-novaya-zyamlya-pervoe-media-belarusi-kotoroe-stalo

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists received three inter­na­tion­al awards for its activ­i­ties on the eve of the World Press Free­dom Day, cel­e­brat­ed on May 3^rd.

In par­tic­u­lar, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists was named as the win­ner of this year‘s UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Free­dom Prize on April 27, 2022:

“By award­ing the prize to the BAJ, we are stand­ing by all jour­nal­ists around the world who crit­i­cize, oppose and expose author­i­tar­i­an politi­cians and regimes, by trans­mit­ting truth­ful infor­ma­tion and pro­mot­ing free­dom of expres­sion”, said Alfred Lela, Chair of the Prize‘s inter­na­tion­al jury, and founder and direc­tor of an Alban­ian media orga­ni­za­tion. “Today we salute and praise them; we find a way to say: we are with you, and we val­ue your courage”, he added.

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

Apart from the UNESCO Prize, the BAJ also received an award from the Swedish sec­tion of ‘Reporters with­out Bor­ders’ (RSF) and the Dif­fer­ence Day Hon­orary Title for Free­dom of Expres­sion, pre­sent­ed by two uni­ver­si­ties in Brus­sels — ULB and VUB.

https://baj.media/ru/content/bazh-nagrazhden-premiey-svoboda-pressy-2022-ot-shvedskoy-organizacii-reportery-bez-granic

https://baj.media/be/content/belaruskaya-asacyyacyya-zhurnalistau-stala-laureatam-difference-day-honorary-title-u-bruseli

Persecution of journalists

25 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were behind bars at the end of April 2022. 9 of them were serv­ing sen­tences in jails.

More­over, the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were sub­ject­ed to arbi­trary search­es and deten­tions with­in the peri­od under review. Thus, the search­es were con­duct­ed in the edi­to­r­i­al office of ‘Mahilous­ki Region’ Web-site as well as at the apart­ments of its three jour­nal­ists with­in one day of Jan­u­ary 14, 2022. (The employ­ees had fled Belarus ear­li­er.)

https://baj.media/be/content/vobshuki-u-magilyouskih-zhurnalistau

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists reg­is­tered no less than 10 cas­es of deten­tion and 13 cas­es of search­es in Jan­u­ary – April 2022.

Four detainees were sub­ject­ed to admin­is­tra­tive arrests for the terms of 10–15 days with­in the report­ing peri­od.

The police seized a mobile phone from a pho­tog­ra­ph­er Siarhei Serabro on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2022. He spent around two hours in a police depart­ment. The per­sons, who detained him, thought that he was going to take footage of a pub­lic protest action against the war in Ukraine at the rail­way sta­tion in Vit­sieb­sk.

https://baj.media/be/content/u‑fatografa-syargeya-serabro-zabrali-mabilny-telefon-za-zdymki-na-vakzale

Four court ver­dicts were announced to jour­nal­ists in Jan­u­ary – April 2022. A sport jour­nal­ist Ali­ak­san­dr Ivulin, a RL/RFE jour­nal­ist Aleh Hruzdzilovich, and a man­ag­er of TAM.BY Web-site that is a con­stituent part of ‘TUT BY MEDIA’ Ltd. Darya Danila­va were accused of ‘orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or tak­ing active part in them’ under the fre­quent­ly applied arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code and sen­tenced to 2, 1.5 and 1.3 years in prison respec­tive­ly. (Daria Danilo­va was released from cus­tody in the court­room).

The ‘Nasha Niva’ online news­pa­per employ­ees Yahor Martsi­novich and Andrei Skurko were sen­tenced to 2.5 years in prison each on the absurd charges of caus­ing large-scale prop­er­ty dam­age (Arti­cle 216 of the Crim­i­nal Code) for pay­ing the edi­to­r­i­al office util­i­ties at the rate for indi­vid­u­als instead of the rate for legal enti­ties.

https://baj.media/be/analytics/represii-suprac-zhurnalistau-u-2022-godze-tablica-spis-znyavolenyh

Dzmit­ry Luk­sha, a free­lance cor­re­spon­dent for the ‘Khabar 24’ TV Chan­nel from Kaza­khstan was detained and placed in cus­tody on March 11, 2022. A crim­i­nal case was filed against him under two arti­cles of the Crim­i­nal Code — 369–1 (‘dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus’) and 342 (‘arrange­ment or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order’). It is known that the accu­sa­tions were ground­ed upon his most recent report, which was broad­cast by the Kaza­kh TV chan­nel.

Aksana Kolb, the Edi­tor-in-chief of ‘Novy Chas’ news­pa­per was arrest­ed on April 20, 2022. The www.novychas.by Web-site was blocked for access from Belarus in Octo­ber 2021. How­ev­er, it was reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed after­wards. Con­se­quent­ly, Ms. Kolb was pre­sent­ed charges under arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code (‘arrange­ment and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them’).

More­over, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties filed crim­i­nal cas­es in rela­tion to Svi­at­lana Har­da, Direc­tor of ‘Media-Palessie’ Inde­pen­dent Region­al Por­tal (arti­cle 424 of Crim­i­nal Code – ‘abuse of pow­er or author­i­ty’ and Ihar Kazmier­chak, the founder of Orsha.eu Region­al News Web-site (arti­cle 368 of Crim­i­nal Code – ‘insult to the Pres­i­dent of Belarus’) with­in the peri­od under review.

https://baj.media/be/content/arshanskaga-pravaabaroncu-i-zhurnalista-igara-kazmerchaka-padazrayuc-u-abraze-lukashenki

https://baj.media/be/content/na-kiraunikou-sayta-medyya-palesse-zavyali-kryminalnuyu-spravu-kamentar-svyatlany-garda

https://baj.media/ru/content/oksane-kolb-glavnomu-redaktoru-gazety-novyy-chas-predyavleno-obvinenie-i-ona-perevedena‑v

A crim­i­nal case against four employ­ees of the Bela­PAN News Agency was sent to court in April 2022. Con­se­quent­ly, the author­i­ties revealed the charges, pre­sent­ed to them. Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau and his girl­friend Iry­na Zlobi­na were accused of prepar­ing “at least 260 per­sons for par­tic­i­pa­tion in group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order” (Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code) and tak­ing part in the activ­i­ties, “aimed at caus­ing harm to the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus” (Arti­cle 356 of the Crim­i­nal Code) for their pay­ment of oth­er people’s fines, lawyers’ bills and oth­er fees with the assis­tance of ‘ByHelp’ Sol­i­dar­i­ty Fund.

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau and Iry­na Leushi­na were accused of cre­at­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion from among the employ­ees of ‘Bela­PAN’ Closed Joint Stock Com­pa­ny and oth­er indi­vid­u­als, as well as of lead­ing such a for­ma­tion (Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code). More­over, Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau and Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau were accused of tax eva­sion by the news agency (Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code). https://sk.gov.by/ru/news-usk-gminsk-ru/view/podrobnosti-prestupnoj-dejatelnosti-rukovoditelej-i-rabotnikov-belapan-11143/

More­over, it became known that Iry­na Slau­nika­va, who is a for­mer employ­ee of the Bel­sat TV chan­nel and a full-time employ­ee of the Pol­ish Tele­vi­sion, was addi­tion­al­ly charged with cre­at­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion (Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code). The jour­nal­ist has been in cus­tody since Octo­ber 2021, being accused of ‘arrange­ment or par­tic­i­pa­tion in group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order.’ Sub­ject to the pre­sen­ta­tion of new charges, Ms. Slau­nika­va faces up to 7 years in jail.

Application of anti-extremist legislation

The Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus was sup­ple­ment­ed with arti­cle 130–2 — ‘Denial of geno­cide of Belaru­sian peo­ple’ with­in the peri­od under review. It was done in com­pli­ance with the new law ‘On geno­cide of the Belaru­sian peo­ple’, adopt­ed on Jan­u­ary 5, 2022. The law intro­duced a monop­oly on the inter­pre­ta­tion of events in 1941–1951 in vio­la­tion of prin­ci­ples of free­dom of speech. The arti­cle of the Crim­i­nal Code pro­vides for a penal­ty of up to 10 years in prison.

The author­i­ties con­tin­ued to rec­og­nize the con­tent of inde­pen­dent mass media as ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ that entailed restric­tion on access to their Web-sites. The fol­low­ing media out­lets were includ­ed in the list of ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ with­in the peri­od under review: ‘Vit­sieb­skiy Kury­er’, ‘Rehiyanal­naya Gaze­ta’, ‘6tv.by’, and ‘Radio Racy­ja’. Pub­lic access was also blocked to numer­ous pages of the pre­vi­ous­ly rec­og­nized ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ on the social media and Telegram chan­nels. In par­tic­u­lar, it con­cerned the Telegram chan­nel and chat of ‘DW Belarus’.

The Russ­ian peri­od­i­cal edi­tion TJour­nal was blocked for post­ing the infor­ma­tion that had been rec­og­nized as ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ by deci­sion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2022.

Since the begin­ning of Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraine on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have blocked pub­lic access to 6 Ukrain­ian news Web-sites – ‘Gor­don’, ‘Obozre­va­tel’, ‘RBK-Ukraine’, ‘InfoRe­sist’, ‘Novoye Vre­mya’, and ‘Focus’.

The KGB rec­og­nized ‘a group of cit­i­zens from ‘Surodzichy’ Pri­vate Uni­tary Enter­prise (‘Nasha Niva’) as well as ‘a group of cit­i­zens, unit­ed by means of the ‘Flagstaff’ Web-site, the ‘Flagstaff — Homielshchy­na’ Telegram chan­nel, and the ‘Flagstaff’ Telegram chat as ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tions’ with­in the peri­od under review. The Min­istry of Inte­ri­or rec­og­nized ‘a group of cit­i­zens, unit­ed by means of the KYKY.ORG Web-site and the linked Telegram chan­nels and accounts in social media’ as ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tions’, too. All in all, 8 Belaru­sian mass media were clas­si­fied as ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tions’ with­in the report­ing peri­od.

A list of cit­i­zens of Belarus, for­eign nation­als and state­less indi­vid­u­als involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties was pub­lished for the first time on March 23, 2022. It includes the names of blog­gers Siarhei Pia­trukhin and Ali­ak­san­dr Kabanau, who are serv­ing prison terms at the moment. https://humanconstanta.org/ekstremizm-na-fone-vojny-obzor-borby-s-ekstremizmom-v-belarusi-za-yanvar-mart-2022/

The process of bring­ing peo­ple to admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty for the alleged ‘dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ has become much broad­er with 237 indi­vid­u­als detained since the begin­ning of 2022. (To be com­pared to 315 peo­ple, who were detained on the same charges in 2021.) Accord­ing to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or of Belarus, ‘the quan­ti­ta­tive growth of detainees is due to the fact that the num­ber of Telegram chan­nels rec­og­nized as extrem­ist is increas­ing’.

https://www.belta.by/incident/view/mvd-s-nachala-goda-zaderzhany-237-grazhdan-rasprostranjavshih-priznannye-ekstremistskimi-materialy-502147–2022/

The Edi­tor-in-chief of ‘Intex-press’ Web-site Uladz­imir Yanukovich and the ‘Media Hantsavichy’ enter­prise that is the own­er of ‘The First Region’ Web-site were fined for the alleged ‘dis­tri­b­u­tion of ‘extrem­ist mate­ri­als’ with­in the peri­od under review.

https://baj.media/be/content/redaktara-intex-press-ashtrafavali-za-raspausyud-ekstremisckih-materyyalau   

https://baj.media/be/content/sud-u-gancavichah-pakarau-uladalnika-sayta-pershy-regiyon-shtrafam-za-raspausyud

Restrictions on access to information

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ued tak­ing mea­sures, in order to restrict access to the con­tent of inde­pen­dent mass media in Jan­u­ary – April 2022. In par­tic­u­lar, the Web-site of ‘Gaze­ta Slonim­skaya’ – www.gs.by – was blocked for access in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

https://baj.media/be/content/ministerstvo-informacii-ogranichilo-dostup-k-saytu-gsby

The block­ing of access of Web-users from Rus­sia to cer­tain Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media became a new phe­nom­e­non with­in the peri­od under review. It was done due to the fact that the media resources cov­ered the mil­i­tary con­flict in Ukraine. The news web­sites Zerkalo.io, Nasha Niva, ‘Euro­pean Radio for Belarus’, ‘Media-Palessie’, ‘Sal­i­dar­nasts’ and reform.news were blocked for pub­lic access in Rus­sia by deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Ser­vice for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Roskom­nad­zor) or the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office. The edi­to­ri­als of Web-sites www.greenbelarus.info and www.brestnote.by received requests from the Russ­ian author­i­ties to remove pub­li­ca­tions about the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine with­in the report­ing peri­od.

https://news.zerkalo.io/life/11024.html

https://baj.media/be/content/raskamnaglyad-zapatrabavau-ad-zyalyonaga-partalu-vydalic-materyyal-pra-ekalagichnyya

https://baj.media/be/content/na-patrabavanne-raskamnaglyada-belaruski-pravaydar-zablakavau-brescki-sayt-za-asvyatlenne

https://baj.media/be/content/v‑rossii-ogranichili-dostup-k-media-polesyu-iz-za-publikaciy-o-voyne

https://baj.media/be/content/salidarnasc-zablokirovana-v-rossii

https://baj.media/be/content/osnovnoe-zerkalo-reformby-zablokirovali-v-rossii

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus issued warn­ings to two pop­u­lar Belaru­sian radio sta­tions – ‘Radio Roks‑M’ and ‘Radio BA’ in March 2022. The FM radio broad­cast­ers were accused of vio­lat­ing the mass media leg­is­la­tion. The first warn­ing con­tained the fol­low­ing state­ment: ‘Ground­ing upon the mon­i­tor­ing results, there were revealed numer­ous facts of dis­tri­b­u­tion of mate­ri­als that are not relat­ed to the com­po­nents of the spe­cial­iza­tion, which is reflect­ed in the reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments of the radio pro­gram’.

https://baj.media/be/content/mininform-belarusi-vynes-preduprezhdenie-uchreditelyu-radio-roks‑m

https://reform.by/304423-mininform-vynes-preduprezhdenie-radio-bi-jej