«Reporters without borders» urge belarusian authorities to stop persecution of independent journalists

The impo­si­tion of fines has become com­mon in recent years and keeps on grow­ing. The ten fines imposed in 2016 rose to 69 in 2017 and have already reached 48 in the first four and a half months of 2018 – 46 of which went to Bel­sat TV reporters.

The fines are based on an orches­trat­ed vicious cir­cle. Harass­ment forces inde­pen­dent media out­lets like Bel­sat TV to relo­cate abroad but, under a 2008 law, jour­nal­ists can be fined if they work for a for­eign-based media with­out for­eign min­istry accred­i­ta­tion.

The author­i­ties have reject­ed Bel­sat TV’s many requests for per­mis­sion to open a bureau in Min­sk and for accred­i­ta­tion for its cor­re­spon­dents. Forced to work ille­gal­ly, these jour­nal­ists not only have secu­ri­ty prob­lems and dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting access to offi­cial infor­ma­tion, but they are now also increas­ing­ly being fined.

The fines hurt in a coun­try where the aver­age month­ly pay is less than 400 euros. After being fined ten times last year, Bel­sat TV reporter Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki has already received eight fines totalling some 2,300 euros in 2018. His col­league, Vol­ha Chay­chits, was fined sev­en times last year and has so far received five fines amount­ing to 1,700 euros this year.

The police specif­i­cal­ly tar­get Bel­sat TV reporters, accord­ing to Bel­sat TV cor­re­spon­dent Pavel Mazhey­ka, who was briefly arrest­ed in March while film­ing an inter­view at a fes­ti­val in Min­sk and was fined 857 rou­bles (350 euros) on 14 May.

“Their aim is to pun­ish and intim­i­date, in order to show that we are under their con­trol, that they can catch us at any time,” he told RSF.

“The expo­nen­tial rise in the num­ber of fines imposed since the start of the year is indica­tive of a tar­get­ed cam­paign to silence Bel­sat TV’s reporters,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia desk.

“Belarus’s inter­na­tion­al part­ners must urgent­ly press the author­i­ties to end the judi­cial and finan­cial harass­ment of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists. The accred­i­ta­tion require­ment for for­eign media must be abol­ished and not extend­ed, as the pro­posed media law cur­rent­ly under con­sid­er­a­tion envis­ages.”

The harass­ment of gov­ern­ment crit­ics inten­si­fied after a wave of anti-gov­ern­ment protests in the spring of 2017 that were cov­ered by Bel­sat TV and oth­er inde­pen­dent media out­lets. Belarus is ranked 155th out of 180 coun­tries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Free­dom Index.