«We stand by the truth, we stand together!» A marathon of solidarity with the imprisoned journalists started in Vilnius

It took thir­ty-three pairs of hands

- We stand by the truth, we stand togeth­er! — These words have soon become a man­i­fes­ta­tion of free­dom, sol­i­dar­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al deter­mi­na­tion of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists to con­tin­ue their work despite the rul­ing regime.

It is quite nat­ur­al that the marathon’s slo­gan in Belaru­sian and Lithuan­ian lan­guages was chant­ed near the «First Swal­lows» mon­u­ment, which sym­bol­izes the thirst for free­dom. The birds slow­ly rise from the a wom­an’s palm, final­ly regain­ing their free­dom.

This feel­ing is miss­ing in Belarus today. Over the past few years, jour­nal­ism has become one of the most dan­ger­ous pro­fes­sions in the coun­try. It has become com­plete­ly crim­i­nal­ized.

Belarus ranks 157th out of 180 coun­tries in the 2023 Press Free­dom Index pub­lished by Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF). To com­pare, the neigh­bor­ing Lithua­nia is the 7th.

Although the gap seems huge, Belaru­sian and Lithuan­ian jour­nal­ists joined togeth­er to hold the por­traits of Mary­na Zolata­va, Andrzei Poc­zobut, Andrei Skurko and oth­er jour­nal­ists.  It took thir­ty-three pairs of hands to rep­re­sent the ordeals that their col­leagues had to endure.

- The mean­ing of the World Press Free­dom Day is to remind the author­i­ties of the oblig­a­tion to respect human rights and free­dom of expres­sion, above all — said the chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists Andrei Bas­tunets. — The por­traits in our hands are the evi­dence of how free­dom of expres­sion is now treat­ed in Belarus.

He called on media rep­re­sen­ta­tives in oth­er coun­tries to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty action and keep the torch burn­ing.

«I hope that one day the world press free­dom rank­ings demon­strate that jour­nal­ists can do their job safe­ly.»

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, abnor­mal­i­ty has become the norm in Belarus. This is per­haps most evi­dent in the media sphere.. Cur­rent­ly, 33 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are behind bars.

A year ago, there were 24 jour­nal­ists in deten­tion. And this is in light of the fact that some of our col­leagues have recent­ly been released.

- Your slo­gan that jour­nal­ism is not a crime is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant now, — says the head of the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists Dainius Radze­vičius. — This is an impor­tant mes­sage for the entire Euro­pean com­mu­ni­ty of jour­nal­ists, and I am glad that we are launch­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty marathon in Vil­nius.

He expressed the hope that one day the world press free­dom rank­ings demon­strate that jour­nal­ists can do their job safe­ly.

Mean­while, the regime’s efforts have made Belarus a black spot on the map of press free­dom in Europe, and the most strik­ing evi­dence of this is the num­ber of por­traits in the hands of the par­tic­i­pants of the sol­i­dar­i­ty action.

It was particularly hard for the regional media.

Since last year, the repres­sion has inten­si­fied. Inde­pen­dent media remain a tar­get for the puni­tive bod­ies.

- Today in Min­sk, a jour­nal­ist can be sen­tenced to up to four years in prison sim­ply for exer­cis­ing the pro­fes­sion, — says the deputy head of the BAJ Barys Haret­s­ki. — From 7 to 15 years in prison if we are talk­ing about an edi­tor, a pub­lish­er, or anoth­er promi­nent fig­ure in the media com­mu­ni­ty.  Such sen­tences have been announced in the courts recent­ly.

It was par­tic­u­lar­ly hard for the region­al media. Just a few days ago, the web­site and social net­work accounts of the most pop­u­lar Baranavichy pub­li­ca­tion, Intex-Press, were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist.

In ear­ly April, Info-Couri­er news­pa­per (Slut­sk)announced its clo­sure after all their texts were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist mate­ri­als. The day before, their news­room was raid­ed. Its edi­tor-in-chief Siarhei Stanke­vich and his deputy Aleh Rubche­nia were arrest­ed. They were sen­tenced to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest.

In mid-March in Vilei­ka, the police raid­ed the house of Rehiyanal­naya Haze­ta’s chief edi­tor Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, he was arrest­ed. He is charged with «spread­ing delib­er­ate­ly false infor­ma­tion dis­cred­it­ing Belarus and its gov­ern­ment.»

- Barys Haret­s­ki believes: «The author­i­ties are tak­ing more and more hostages to replace those who have been released. — Very often it is not even a spe­cif­ic text or sto­ry the author­i­ties are after. The reporters are arrest­ed on charges of col­lab­o­ra­tion with the media, which has been declared an extrem­ist for­ma­tion by the author­i­ties.

BAJ announced the «Marathon of Sol­i­dar­i­ty» cam­paign to sup­port all jouor­nal­ists behind bars. It is a reminder to the whole world that free speech is being destroyed in Belarus, and jour­nal­ists pay with their free­dom for doing their job hon­est­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

We call on jour­nal­ists’ unions and human rights orga­ni­za­tions, as well as promi­nent pub­lic fig­ures, to join the cam­paign and advo­cate for the release of the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists.

BAJ calls on col­leagues around the world to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign!

You can print por­traits of our impris­oned col­leagues, take pho­tos with them in well-known loca­tions in your city (not in Belarus) and post them on social net­works with the tags #СвабодуЖурналістам and #BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist, and also send them to us at baj@baj.by.

#СвабодуЖурналістам
#BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist