BAJ expresses condolences on the untimely death of Reporters Without Borders Secretary General

It is with great sad­ness that we announce the pass­ing of Christophe Deloire, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion Reporters With­out Bor­ders. Deloire, who was 53 years old, died in Paris after a bat­tle with can­cer.

Christophe Deloire. Pho­to: Face­book

The BAJ extends its deep­est sym­pa­thies to the fam­i­ly and friends of our col­league.

The entire jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty has suf­fered a sig­nif­i­cant loss. Reporters With­out Bor­ders has been advo­cat­ing for the rights of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists since the out­set of the 2020 protests.

On May 28, 2021, Christophe Deloire flew to the Lithuan­ian-Belaru­sian bor­der to express sol­i­dar­i­ty and protest against the per­se­cu­tion of his Belaru­sian col­leagues by the Lukashen­ka regime. On the pre­vi­ous day, the spe­cial ser­vices had forcibly land­ed in Min­sk the Ryanair plane car­ry­ing the founder of the Nex­ta Telegram chan­nel, Raman Prata­se­vich, and his part­ner, Sofia Sape­ha.

It is of the utmost impor­tance for every jour­nal­ist to have the sup­port of a col­league and a friend in times of dif­fi­cul­ty. Mr. Deloire was present when his assis­tance was most cru­cial.

In Belarus, we say, “As you sow, so you reap.” Mr. Deloire pro­vid­ed an exam­ple of sol­i­dar­i­ty, sup­port, and the fight for pro­fes­sion­al rights for Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. This is what we will remem­ber.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists extends its grat­i­tude to Christophe Deloire for his invalu­able con­tri­bu­tions to Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism and for the con­tin­ued efforts of his col­leagues from Reporters With­out Bor­ders.