MEPs condemn harassment and detention of journalists in Belarus

They also con­sid­er it unac­cept­able that the author­i­ties have blocked the lead­ing inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian news web­site Char­ter 97, and strong­ly dis­ap­prove of the recent amend­ments adopt­ed to the country’s media law, which are being used to cre­ate bureau­crat­ic bur­dens for jour­nal­ists and tight­en con­trol over the inter­net.

Par­lia­ment regrets the fact that Belarus is con­tin­u­ing its repres­sive and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­cy against jour­nal­ists, lawyers, polit­i­cal activists and civ­il soci­ety actors; such repres­sion hin­ders any clos­er rela­tion­ship with the EU and broad­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in the East­ern Part­ner­ship, MEPs stress.

Final­ly, they call for the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers Mikhail Zham­chuzh­ny and Dzmit­ry Paliyen­ka, and urge the EU for­eign pol­i­cy chief Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni to close­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion of media free­dom in Belarus.