Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “Strong democracy cannot be built without independent media”

The politi­cian recalled the dis­ap­pear­ance of Dmit­ry Zavad­ski twen­ty-two years ago and the mur­der of Verani­ka Charkasa­va in 2004:

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“In Belarus, the regime has always kept a bean on prin­ci­pled jour­nal­ists. How­ev­er, twen­ty-eight years were not enough for it to cleanse and take con­trol of the media realm. The truth has always found its way through the pro­pa­gan­da avalanche, despite repres­sion and con­stant pres­sure on the media.”

Ms. Tsikhanouskaya thanked reporters and assured them that she appre­ci­at­ed both sup­port­ive and crit­i­cal pub­li­ca­tions:

Despite the scale of the repres­sion, you did not give up. On the con­trary, you tripled your efforts – so that your col­leagues would be released as soon as pos­si­ble, so that Belaru­sians would not be fooled again with tales of sta­bil­i­ty or imag­i­nary ene­mies

Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya named some jour­nal­ists who are cur­rent­ly in prison: Yahor Martsi­novich, Mary­na Zolata­va, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va, Sasha Ivulin, Ihar Losik, Kse­nia Lut­ski­na.

“Thou­sands of Belaru­sians are fac­ing jail time for print­ing and dis­creet­ly dis­trib­ut­ing hon­est news,” said the leader of the demo­c­ra­t­ic forces. “They share impor­tant infor­ma­tion with inde­pen­dent media and pub­lic orga­ni­za­tions. In a time of attacks on the media, peo­ple have come to your aid. And I’m grate­ful to each and every one of those cit­i­zens”.

Accord­ing to the politi­cian, “these dark times will end some­day.” And “the spir­it, the yearn­ing for truth, and the respon­si­bil­i­ty for our future will stay with us and help us build a free coun­try”.

Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya thanked the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists for fight­ing for the rights of its mem­bers, the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists – for its invalu­able sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty, and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions – for their assis­tance to media and civic activists.

“Today, when the war has bro­ken out both in the infor­ma­tion realm and in real life, when the Belaru­sians risk not only to go to jail, but to lose their homes, to lose their inde­pen­dence, it is of para­mount impor­tance for us to keep Belarus on the agen­da,” said the leader of the demo­c­ra­t­ic forces. “Every crime com­mit­ted by the Lukashen­ka regime, be it against Belaru­sians or the peo­ple of Ukraine, must be exposed and inves­ti­gat­ed for future tri­als.

She admit­ted, how­ev­er, that “the strug­gle for free­dom and inde­pen­dence has been longer, hard­er and more gru­el­ing than we had imag­ined”:

“I admire every per­son who per­se­veres in this strug­gle, who does not break down or give up. I know that the cur­rent cir­cum­stances seem rather dis­cour­ag­ing. But thanks to your efforts, we have a chance to give our coun­try back to the peo­ple”.

The Free Jour­nal­ism Forum, orga­nized by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists, takes place on Decem­ber 1 in Vil­nius. Among the event par­tic­i­pants are politi­cians, jour­nal­ists, human rights activists, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions.

You can fol­low the forum online on YouTube:

 — in Russ­ian https://youtu. be/WbHG0t7MJnQ

— in Eng­lish https://youtu. be/gjprn8MeYXg

— in Lithuan­ian https://youtu. be/jQPOpl9Ze8Q