“We don’t want Belarus to become an information black hole.” Discussions at Free Journalism Forum

“It is a collective journalistic mind that keeps on working”

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, some 400 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives have fled the coun­try for safe­ty rea­sons in recent years. Relo­cat­ing whole edi­to­r­i­al boards has become com­mon­place.

“In Belarus, jour­nal­ism and media keep fac­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for reporters’ activ­i­ties,” acknowl­edged Tere­sa Ribeiro, OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Free­dom of the Media. “Cas­es of harass­ment are sys­tem­at­ic. This is unac­cept­able. My col­leagues and I con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion.”

“I left Belarus by acci­dent and couldn’t return – while I was away, my home and edi­to­r­i­al office were searched, the equip­ment was seized, and cas­es were ini­ti­at­ed against me and my son,” says Svi­at­lana Har­da, edi­tor-in-chief of Media-Polesye web­site, which is typ­i­cal of the last two years’ Belaru­sian con­text. “How­ev­er, we keep work­ing despite the cen­sor­ship in Belarus. Our audi­ence has proved to be extreme­ly loy­al. Peo­ple turn to us with their prob­lems and ques­tions out of old habits, they seek infor­ma­tion about their region. The short­age of local news is now acute­ly felt.”

Since the out­break of war in Ukraine, some media out­lets have had to under­go a dou­ble relo­ca­tion.

“At first, part of our team moved to Kyiv, where Zerkalo.io was found­ed,” recalled Ali­ak­san­dra Pushk­i­na, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor of the media out­let. “How­ev­er, at the begin­ning of this year, we had to move for the sec­ond time. We are now oper­at­ing from Lithua­nia and Poland. We had to start the whole process again here – reg­is­ter­ing a legal enti­ty and employ­ing peo­ple. But our work did not stop for a sin­gle day, even when the team was mov­ing from Kyiv to oth­er coun­tries.”

The col­lapse of the media in Belarus, the arrest of media man­agers, and the relo­ca­tion-relat­ed dif­fi­cul­ties were not the only prob­lems faced by the edi­to­r­i­al team:

“Yan­dex blocked our media in its search engine. As a result, the churn amount­ed to over one mil­lion users. That was main­ly the Russ­ian audi­ence. But eight months lat­er, we are back to our pre­vi­ous fig­ures and have man­aged to reach 3.5 mil­lion unique users. Some 50–60% are read­ers from Belarus, which is very moti­vat­ing and makes us do the work. We can­not lose courage or twid­dle our thumbs.”

Anoth­er pop­u­lar online pub­li­ca­tion that keeps work­ing from abroad is Nasha Niva. Its direc­tor Anas­ta­sia Rou­da described the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus as unhealthy, and the cur­rent times as a test and a marathon for reporters:

“We keep up the media work, we dwell on the neg­a­tive Belaru­sian agen­da from sunup to sun­set. There are dai­ly reports of deten­tions, there are tri­als, and the war has bro­ken out. At the same time, our texts are anony­mous on both ends. On the one hand, we write about anony­mous sub­jects and sto­ries. On the oth­er hand, we are wor­ried about those who do jour­nal­ism. That’s why the texts are most­ly signed as Nashaniva.com. It is a col­lec­tive jour­nal­is­tic mind that keeps work­ing.”

“The persecution of journalists in prison continues”

“The sit­u­a­tion with free­dom of speech and expres­sion of inde­pen­dent media in Belarus stays one of the worst in Europe,” said BAJ deputy chair­man Barys Haret­s­ki.

This year alone over fifty search­es and inspec­tions at jour­nal­ists’ homes were con­duct­ed and over forty reporters were detained in Belarus.

He remind­ed that the tri­al of Henadz Mazhei­ka, for­mer Kom­so­mol­skaya prav­da v Belarusi cor­re­spon­dent, start­ed the day the Forum was hap­pen­ing. The reporter is stand­ing tri­al in the case of Andrei Zeltser who shot a KGB agent dur­ing a raid and was killed after. He is being tried for pub­lish­ing the sto­ry of an acquain­tance of the deceased IT work­er.

Accord­ing to BAJ, 32 jour­nal­ists are cur­rent­ly kept in deten­tion. Sen­tences range from 8 years of impris­on­ment for Kate­ri­na Andree­va to 14 years for Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau and 13 years for Dzia­n­is Ivashyn…

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the list goes on and on.

As Barys Haret­s­ki not­ed, the per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists in deten­tion facil­i­ties con­tin­ues: “On far-fetched grounds, they are deprived of rel­a­tives’ vis­its, cor­re­spon­dence bans are imposed, lawyers’ vis­its are restrict­ed.

“In Belarus, there are no legal mech­a­nisms for jour­nal­ists to defend their rights,” added the BAJ deputy chair­man. “Tri­als are held behind closed doors. Some­times it is not even known what exact­ly the reporters are accused of.”

More­over, the author­i­ties label any­thing they do not like as extrem­ism, includ­ing numer­ous media out­lets.

“This is not just cen­sor­ship of the infor­ma­tion field, but its cleans­ing,” said Barys Haret­s­ki. “Such actions affect the work of inde­pen­dent media which should pro­tect both jour­nal­ists and sub­jects in their pub­li­ca­tions.

The Turkmenisation of Belarus

The unac­cept­able sit­u­a­tion with free­dom of speech and vio­la­tion of jour­nal­ists’ pro­fes­sion­al rights is close­ly mon­i­tored by var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions.

Thus, Maria Ordzhonikidze, direc­tor of the Jus­tice for Jour­nal­ists Foun­da­tion (found­ed after the mur­der of three Russ­ian reporters who inves­ti­gat­ed the activ­i­ties of the Wag­n­er Group in the Cen­tral African Repub­lic) drew atten­tion to this trend:

“In 2020, over 1.5 thou­sand attacks were reg­is­tered, includ­ing legal harass­ment (attack through weaponiz­ing law, wrong­ful depri­va­tion of lib­er­ty), on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists in Belarus. In 2021, there were some 1000 cas­es. In 2022, the num­ber dropped down to three hun­dred. It’s not that the inten­si­ty of attacks has decreased: there just isn’t any­one to attack – some have been expelled from the coun­try, and some have been jailed. We call this Turk­m­eniza­tion.”

Dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the sit­u­a­tion with free­dom of speech is char­ac­ter­is­tic for the whole region – includ­ing in Rus­sia and Ukraine.

“Jour­nal­ists have been repressed, pros­e­cut­ed, killed dur­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions,” observed Jeanne Cav­a­lier, direc­tor of Reporters With­out Bor­ders in East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia office.

At the same time, she admit­ted that Belarus had become one of the most dan­ger­ous coun­tries for media work­ers in the world. Belarus is ranked 153^rd in the rat­ing of the free­dom of jour­nal­ists.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Reporters With­out Bor­ders assured that Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are pro­vid­ed with all avail­able sup­port: finan­cial, tech­ni­cal, edu­ca­tion­al, legal, and psy­cho­log­i­cal assis­tance.

“We do not want Belarus and Rus­sia to become black holes in terms of infor­ma­tion,” Jeanne Cav­a­lier empha­sized.

“It’s time to stop being dithery!”

Inter­est­ing obser­va­tions were voiced by Lithuan­ian jour­nal­ists and human rights activists who close­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion with the Belaru­sian media sec­tor.

Deputy chair­man of the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists Dar­ius Lukoše­vičius not­ed:

“Thir­ty years ago there tanks drove to the streets of Vil­nius, and the troops seized the nation­al radio and tele­vi­sion. But that sit­u­a­tion was dif­fer­ent from what you have in Belarus. We have nev­er had to work in emi­gra­tion, there were not many quis­lings among Lithuan­ian jour­nal­ists. The sit­u­a­tion is more com­pli­cat­ed for you.”

In his opin­ion, Belarus is no more a high pri­or­i­ty on the Euro­pean polit­i­cal and media agen­da, unlike two years ago.

“If any infor­ma­tion appears, it is, as a rule, anoth­er state­ment by Lukashen­ka,” point­ed out Dar­ius Lukoše­vičius. “As a pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ist, I have no idea what the Belaru­sian soci­ety lives and breathes today and what part of the pop­u­la­tion believes Putin’s pro­pa­gan­da.”

Vytis Jurko­nis, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist, human rights defend­er, and head of the Free­dom House office in Lithua­nia, demon­strat­ed aware­ness of the process­es hap­pen­ing in Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism:

“I used to be crit­i­cal about the lack of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism. Over time, it emerged thanks to Stanis­lau Ivashkevich’s team. But these inves­ti­ga­tions may be even tougher and harsh­er and tar­get the real cul­prits.”

He also brought to notice that the media, includ­ing sports-ori­ent­ed ones (Tribuna.com in par­tic­u­lar), are switch­ing to Belaru­sian: “It’s amaz­ing! Five years ago it would have been some­thing far-fetched.”

At the same time, Vitis Yurko­nis empha­sized the dom­i­nance of opin­ions from the same experts and the lack of region­al news.

He also called for self-reg­u­la­tion of the media sphere:

“Strange projects like Radio 97 should not exist and divert resources. A clear stance on such projects is required. Let’s be hon­est: it is time to stop being dith­ery.”

The polit­i­cal sci­en­tist believes that there are good prospects for cross-bor­der coop­er­a­tion between the Belaru­sian, Ukrain­ian, and Russ­ian inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists to build an anti-tatal­i­tar­i­an front.

He con­clud­ed by urg­ing: “The inde­pen­dent media in Belarus have stood their ground. Give them hon­or and praise, but don’t lose focus!”

Watch the recorded video here:

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

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