Mailboxes for letters to imprisoned Belarusian journalists set up in Helsinki

On 8 August, Reporters With­out Bor­ders in coop­er­a­tion with the Merk­ki-Media muse­um and archives will organ­ise an action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists behind bars.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty action with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Luk­iškės Prison, Vil­nius, 3 May 2024. Pho­to: BAJ

A wall of let­ter­box­es has been estab­lished at the Merk­ki-Media muse­um and archives in Helsin­ki, Fin­land, as part of a per­ma­nent exhi­bi­tion on press free­dom. The box­es will con­tain infor­ma­tion about jour­nal­ists impris­oned for polit­i­cal rea­sons. In each box, vis­i­tors can leave a let­ter for a spe­cif­ic media rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

“We are invit­ing jour­nal­ists to this event and hope to attract the atten­tion of the gen­er­al pub­lic: the box­es will be avail­able to vis­i­tors to the muse­um. We hope that muse­um vis­i­tors and school groups will write let­ters to the jour­nal­ist pris­on­ers and leave put in the mail­box­es,” Ingrid Svan­feldt, board mem­ber of Reporters With­out Bor­ders Fin­land, told BAJ.

The let­ter­box­es will be avail­able to muse­um vis­i­tors until the end of 2024, pos­si­bly longer.

Ingrid Svan­feldt, a mem­ber of the Finnish Jour­nal­ists’ Union and now a board mem­ber of Reporters With­out Bor­ders Fin­land, has first-hand knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion with inde­pen­dent media in Belarus. She learned about it from her Belaru­sian friend and also met Larysa Shchyrako­va, an impris­oned jour­nal­ist, at a sem­i­nar in Nor­way about 10 years ago.

In August 2020, at the height of the protests in Belarus, Ingrid Svan­feldt start­ed online meet­ings between Swedes and Belaru­sians in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. The action con­tin­ues today and takes place every Tues­day – dur­ing the calls they dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus and ways to help polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.