“Belarus has become one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.” Interview with Jeanne Cavelier representing Reporters Without Borders

32 Belarusian journalists are in custody. The situation is only worse in China, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Iran

— Before 2020, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism expe­ri­enced some dis­crim­i­na­tion from the state agen­cies. After the mass protests, it turned out that it could be much worse. How do you assess the sit­u­a­tion with press free­dom now?

— Belarus has become one of the most dan­ger­ous coun­tries for jour­nal­ists in the world. Its posi­tion at the bot­tom of the Press Free­dom Index means that the sit­u­a­tion is extreme­ly seri­ous.

This rat­ing is based on five key indi­ca­tors: polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, socio-cul­tur­al, legal con­text, and vio­lence against jour­nal­ists. Regres­sion has been observed on all counts.

We see that harass­ment of jour­nal­ists con­tin­ues, includ­ing search­es of their edi­to­r­i­al offices and homes. As a result, many reporters can­not con­tin­ue their work with­out risk­ing deten­tion. The web­sites and social media of most inde­pen­dent media out­lets are declared extrem­ist.

Spe­cial men­tion should be made of the unprece­dent­ed forced land­ing of the plane and the deten­tion of Raman Prata­se­vich.

In terms of the num­ber of impris­oned press mem­bers, Belarus is one of the five worst coun­tries in the world. The sit­u­a­tion is even sad­der in Chi­na, Myan­mar, Viet­nam, and Iran.

— Did you see the pre­con­di­tions for such a devel­op­ment?

— Of course, we have seen a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in 2020.

Dur­ing mass demon­stra­tions, the author­i­ties were afraid of the spread of truth­ful infor­ma­tion. They were afraid that more peo­ple would join the protest move­ment.

. We hoped that this would change. But things only got worse and worse.

— And not only in Belarus…

— Yes, as we can see, the sit­u­a­tion regard­ing free­dom of speech has dete­ri­o­rat­ed rapid­ly through­out the region. Jour­nal­ists are repressed and impris­oned in Rus­sia as well.

Fol­low­ing the inva­sion of Ukraine, reporters there were lit­er­al­ly hunt­ed down: eight media work­ers were killed while per­form­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties, and sev­en­teen were injured. This is an extreme­ly bad sit­u­a­tion.

How can we help? We sup­port some two thou­sand jour­nal­ists, in par­tic­u­lar, by pro­vid­ing reporters with bul­let-proof vests and oth­er equip­ment. Short­ly, we intend to send gen­er­a­tors and oth­er portable devices to charge lap­tops, phones, and cam­eras to enable the con­tin­u­a­tion of unin­ter­rupt­ed work.

We have recent­ly received a request from Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists in Ukraine who need to be relo­cat­ed. We are pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary sup­port in this mat­ter.

We also help to obtain visas for those who want to leave Belarus.

A fund has been start­ed for jour­nal­ists work­ing out­side Belarus. With this fund­ing, the media can con­tin­ue their work.

More­over, tech­ni­cal, legal, edu­ca­tion­al, and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port is pro­vid­ed. In par­tic­u­lar, tech­nol­o­gy is being cre­at­ed to avoid block­ing sites, plus we pro­vide access to VPN ser­vices.

“In the news agenda, Belarus has faded into the background”

— It was to be expect­ed that the atten­tion of the whole world is now drawn to the war in Ukraine, while the Belaru­sian agen­da has been rel­e­gat­ed to the back burn­er. Isn’t this a fac­tor con­tribut­ing to an even deep­er plunge into the cri­sis?

— We are very con­cerned about the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, Rus­sia, and Turk­menistan. We believe that these coun­tries have a lot in com­mon, includ­ing atti­tudes toward free­dom of speech.

At the same time, we note that in the news agen­da, Belarus has fad­ed into the back­ground.

When cov­er­ing the sit­u­a­tion in the media, the con­nec­tion between Belarus and Rus­sia should always be point­ed out for a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion by the audi­ence.

At the same time, we strive to make sure that Belarus is not for­got­ten. Wher­ev­er we can, we dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion about the repres­sion of jour­nal­ists and report on the sit­u­a­tion with free­dom of speech.

In par­tic­u­lar, we pre­pared a report on jour­nal­ists con­tin­u­ing their work in exile.

We have been in dis­cus­sions with the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al for sev­er­al years about cre­at­ing a new posi­tion – a UN rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the safe­ty and rights of jour­nal­ists.

We also believe it is nec­es­sary to focus on crimes against jour­nal­ists. The per­pe­tra­tors must be pun­ished.

We filed sev­en com­plaints about vio­la­tions of jour­nal­ists’ rights. These doc­u­ments were sent to Lithuan­ian law enforce­ment author­i­ties. One of the accu­sa­tions con­cerns Lukashen­ka, who, in our opin­ion, was involved in the forced land­ing of the plane and the ille­gal deten­tion of jour­nal­ist Raman Prata­se­vich.

— Has there been any progress on the inves­ti­ga­tion in Vil­nius?

— Two days after Raman Pratasevich’s deten­tion, we filed a com­plaint with the Lithuan­ian law enforce­ment author­i­ties, as that country’s court has the rel­e­vant inter­na­tion­al com­pe­tence.

We had a meet­ing at the state prosecutor’s office. They heard our argu­ments and expressed inter­est in the inves­ti­ga­tion, which is still ongo­ing.

“Independent journalism, both inside and outside the country, is needed to restore peace”

— There is an opin­ion that the Belaru­sian regime, just like the Russ­ian one, could not care less about the crit­i­cism from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Is there any poten­tial for improv­ing the effect?

— The most effec­tive pres­sure on Belarus would be, of course, from Rus­sia. But we under­stand that it is impos­si­ble right now.

True, West­ern sanc­tions are not always well-start­ed, and that is a big prob­lem. There is still work to be done in this respect. But if we stop tak­ing action on that front, it will only get worse. Who is going to do it?

We do not know when the war in Ukraine and repres­sion in Belarus will end, but we have to under­stand that it is very impor­tant to keep exert­ing pres­sure on Lukashenka’s regime. He must not for­get that we mon­i­tor his actions, see and record what he does, how he treats peo­ple in deten­tion, and how he vio­lates free­dom of speech.

— Don’t you think we are wit­ness­ing a major cri­sis of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions? What is their role now?

— Our orga­ni­za­tion is not very well-fund­ed. The avail­able resources enable us to help jour­nal­ists with relo­ca­tion and finances for starters.

That is, we are talk­ing about emer­gency aid, which is not enough for sus­tain­able jour­nal­ism.

How­ev­er, we intend to keep sup­port­ing reporters, both those who remain in Belarus and those who have left the coun­try, because we under­stand how dif­fi­cult it is to be away from sources of infor­ma­tion, to over­come admin­is­tra­tive prob­lems, and to be sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies.

— Do you think it’s a shame for Europe to have a neigh­bor like Belarus with its cur­rent regime?

— Yes, and that’s why I think Euro­pean coun­tries should do every­thing pos­si­ble to help and wel­come inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists.

— Should they though?

— They have to! If they don’t, the reporters won’t be able to work and it will be dif­fi­cult to rebuild inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism, and there­fore civ­il soci­ety, lat­er on.

Jour­nal­ism is the basis for democ­ra­cy. Inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism, both inside and out­side the coun­try, is need­ed to restore peace.

Ulti­mate­ly, this ben­e­fits not only the neigh­bors but also the rest of the coun­tries in the region.

— How do you see the way out of this cri­sis?

— If the regime changes to a demo­c­ra­t­ic one, jour­nal­ists can go home, and I think they will. I know that many want to con­tin­ue work­ing in the pro­fes­sion. It is going to be an oppor­tu­ni­ty for media devel­op­ment.