Postcards for Maryna: RSF launches global campaign action in support of jailed Belarusian journalist Maryna Zolatava

Start­ing on 6 Sep­tem­ber, phys­i­cal cards and let­ters with mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mary­na Zolata­va will be col­lect­ed at RSF’s Paris head­quar­ters, as well as RSF’s coun­try offices in Aus­tria, Ger­many, Swe­den, Switzer­land, the UK, and the US. The mail­ing address­es can be found below. Alter­na­tive­ly, sup­port­ers can also send online mes­sages via postcardsformaryna@rsf.org. RSF will deliv­er these cards, let­ters, and mes­sages in par­al­lel to the Belaru­sian embassies in sev­er­al coun­tries on 6 Novem­ber, Zolatava’s 46th birth­day. Inter­na­tion­al sup­port is cru­cial­ly need­ed for Zolata­va, the edi­tor-in-chief of TUT.BY, Belarus’ most pop­u­lar inde­pen­dent news site before its ban.

“Three years into the Lukashenko regime’s relent­less crack­down, it is more impor­tant than ever to mobilise inter­na­tion­al­ly in sup­port of coura­geous Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists like Mary­na Zolata­va. We encour­age all those around the world who care about press free­dom to join our action to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mary­na and send a clear mes­sage to the Belaru­sian author­i­ties that the jail­ing of jour­nal­ists and silenc­ing of inde­pen­dent media is com­plete­ly unac­cept­able. It’s time to #Free­Zo­lata­va along with the oth­er 33 jour­nal­ists behind bars in Belarus!

Rebec­ca Vin­cent

RSF’s Direc­tor of Cam­paigns

Mary­na Zolata­va has been detained since 18 May 2021, and is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a 12-year sen­tence in a Min­sk prison on nation­al secu­ri­ty charges, along with TUT.BY man­ag­er Liud­mi­la Chek­ina. In August, the two were added to the Lukashenko regime’s list of “extrem­ists,” mean­ing they will be banned from tak­ing on any pub­lic role in Belarus, and the police will be able to mon­i­tor their finan­cial trans­ac­tions, as well as fol­low them when they will be released from prison.

Zolata­va and Chek­ina were tar­get­ed as part of the severe crack­down launched by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties fol­low­ing Alexan­der Lukashenko’s fraud­u­lent reelec­tion in August 2020. A total of 34 jour­nal­ists are cur­rent­ly behind bars in Belarus — among them 10 women jour­nal­ists — mak­ing the coun­try the fourth largest jail­er of jour­nal­ists in the world. 

Belarus is ranked 157th out of 180 coun­tries in RSF’s 2023 World Press Free­dom Index.

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