Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya assures she will persist in seeking support for Belarusian independent media and claims negotiations with YouTube advance significantly

“Your courage and ded­i­ca­tion are tru­ly inspir­ing. I know work­ing in exile is tough, and you put your­selves, your fam­i­lies, and your per­son­al lives at risk. But all your efforts to reveal the truth will not be in vain. Every day your work brings us clos­er to achiev­ing our vic­to­ry togeth­er,” Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya said to jour­nal­ists in her address.

This piece is cre­at­ed with the sup­port of PATREON

She men­tioned media out­lets such as Nasha Niva, Zerka­lo, Grodno.Life, Euro­ra­dio, Bel­sat, and RFE/RL Belarus.

The leader of the demo­c­ra­t­ic forces empha­sized that jour­nal­ists are the cru­cial piece that con­nects Belaru­sians in exile with those inside the coun­try.

“It’s impor­tant to note that many of your col­leagues have already paid a high price for their work. Thank you for your con­tri­bu­tion. Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va, Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, Ihar Losik, Andrei Kuznechyk, Kse­nia Lut­ski­na, Pavel Mazhei­ka, Andrzej Poc­zobut, Larysa Shchyrako­va, Iry­na Slau­nika­va, Mary­na Zolata­va, and many oth­ers are cur­rent­ly detained in prison. A total of 33 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers are behind bars.”

Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya has promised to con­tin­ue her efforts until all the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing those afore­men­tioned, are released. She quot­ed the edi­tor-in-chief of the Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta Ali­ak­san­dr Mantsevich’s final state­ment in court. The jour­nal­ist spoke about his grand­fa­ther who was exe­cut­ed in Belarus.

“Our fight for free­dom is tough, but it’s the only cor­rect path. I’m unsure how long it will take or what chal­lenges lie before us. Nonethe­less, build­ing alliances is crit­i­cal to win this strug­gle,” she stressed.

Belaru­sians have numer­ous friends who back them up in the glob­al are­na. The politi­cian said she would keep seek­ing sup­port for inde­pen­dent media since it’s an invest­ment in Europe’s safe and secure future, rather than char­i­ty.

“We need to counter pro­pa­gan­da: that of Rus­sia and the cur­rent Belaru­sian regime. They may have more resources and tools, but we have skilled pro­fes­sion­als, pow­er­ful allies from around the world, and best prac­tices from oth­er coun­tries. Let’s use our full poten­tial,” Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya urged.

Dur­ing her vis­it to Berlin, she vis­it­ed the YouTube office. Its admin­is­tra­tion promised to do its best to assist the Belaru­sian media by offer­ing resources, instruc­tion, and an adver­tis­ing bud­get.

Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya met with the platform’s chief exec­u­tive offi­cer in Ger­many, Sabine Frank, accord­ing to the politician’s Telegram chan­nel. They talked about pro­mot­ing the use of the Belaru­sian lan­guage on YouTube, and as a result, it will now be sup­port­ed in var­i­ous plat­form ser­vices, with Belaru­sian-lan­guage con­tent mon­e­ti­za­tion allowed.

The YouTube rep­re­sen­ta­tive said that they were already dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of adding Belaru­sian to the pool of sup­port­ed lan­guages on Google Ads. Fur­ther­more, the platform’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives stat­ed that they track and remove “repen­tant” videos, chan­nels, and accounts of regime pro­mot­ers. Tsikhanouskaya and Frank also talked about the chance of host­ing train­ing ses­sions for the Belaru­sian media and orga­ni­za­tions involv­ing YouTube spe­cial­ists.

Politi­cians and diplo­mats who orga­nized the Vil­nius sem­i­nar made sig­nif­i­cant state­ments. They urged to ful­fill oblig­a­tions to safe­guard free­dom of expres­sion instead of claim­ing that the regime’s acco­lades hin­der it.

Read more:

EU politicians and diplomats, along with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, join Marathon of Solidarity with Imprisoned Journalists

RSF delivers hundreds of “Postcards for Maryna” to Belarusian embassies in 7 cities, calling for the release of jailed editor Maryna Zolatava

In Lviv, Belarusians and Ukrainians expressed solidarity with journalists imprisoned by Lukashenka