OSCE Media Freedom Representative warns of further serious restrictions on freedom of expression in recently adopted Belarusian laws

“The recent legal reg­u­la­tions adopt­ed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties are detri­men­tal to the already dire state of free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of the media in the coun­try,” Ribeiro said. “I call on the nation­al author­i­ties to repeal these exces­sive­ly restric­tive pro­vi­sions and under­take a com­pre­hen­sive reform of the nation­al leg­is­la­tion to bring it in line with applic­a­ble inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and the OSCE com­mit­ments of the Repub­lic of Belarus.”

The Representative’s com­ments fol­low legal analy­ses com­mis­sioned by her Office and pre­pared by inde­pen­dent experts of the then draft laws “On amend­ing leg­is­la­tion in the sphere of mass media”, “On amend­ing the Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus “On Mass Events in the Repub­lic of Belarus” and “On Amend­ing the Codes Relat­ed to Crim­i­nal Lia­bil­i­ty Issues”. As per estab­lished prac­tice, the experts analysed the laws, which were enact­ed in late May 2021, in the con­text of the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus, as well as in the con­text of rel­e­vant inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and OSCE com­mit­ments on free­dom of the media.

The analy­sis of first two doc­u­ments, under­tak­en by media lawyer Dmit­ry Golo­vanov, con­cludes that the new­ly intro­duced amend­ments con­tain a pre­vail­ing poten­tial of exces­sive restric­tions on the right to free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of the media. The analy­sis under­lines that the amend­ments lack suf­fi­cient bal­anc­ing pro­vi­sions to pre­vent the unjus­ti­fied appli­ca­tion of restric­tive mea­sures for the mass media, which will inevitably nar­row the space for free­dom of infor­ma­tion.    

While the law “On Amend­ing the Codes Relat­ed to Crim­i­nal Lia­bil­i­ty Issues” con­cerns a broad range of exist­ing and new crimes, expert Dr. Ele­na Sher­sto­boe­va focused on the pro­vi­sions that affect the right to free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of the media. She stud­ied, amongst oth­ers, the pro­vi­sions relat­ed to extrem­ism, defama­tion, artis­tic free­dom and pri­va­cy. The analy­sis con­cludes that the law pos­es seri­ous new chal­lenges to the exer­cise of the afore­men­tioned rights, as it sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es already dis­pro­por­tion­ate crim­i­nal penal­ties for exist­ing crimes; pro­vides exces­sive­ly harsh pun­ish­ment for new offens­es; and – as it large­ly fails to com­ply with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards on pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, legal­i­ty and neces­si­ty – pos­es the risk of arbi­trary appli­ca­tion.

“The legal reviews offer impor­tant rec­om­men­da­tions aimed at address­ing the most prob­lem­at­ic mat­ters of free speech in Belarus. As always, my Office stands ready to assist and pro­vide fur­ther, so much need­ed exper­tise,” Ribeiro added.

The Exec­u­tive Sum­maries (in Eng­lish) and full legal analy­ses (in Russ­ian) are avail­able at:

https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media/490493

https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media/490499

Ear­li­er, the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive com­mis­sioned and pre­sent­ed to the author­i­ties a Legal Review of Res­o­lu­tion No. 578 of the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters of the Repub­lic of Belarus, adopt­ed on 2 Octo­ber 2020, which gov­erns accred­i­ta­tion rules and pro­ce­dures for for­eign jour­nal­ists in Belarus: https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media/481264

The OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media observes media devel­op­ments in all 57 OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing States. She pro­vides ear­ly warn­ing on vio­la­tions of free­dom of expres­sion and media free­dom and pro­motes full com­pli­ance with OSCE media free­dom com­mit­ments. Learn more at www.osce.org/fom, Twit­ter: @OSCE_RFoM and on www.facebook.com/osce.rfom.