Is it worth for foreign journalists to work under the radar in Belarus?

Yes, there have been cas­es when full-length doc­u­men­taries were shot in Min­sk for sev­er­al months with­out any per­mis­sions or accred­i­ta­tions. Yes, there is an off­shore TV www.belsat.eu, which has many kamikaze crews ille­gal­ly doing dai­ly news sto­ries from all over the coun­try, but their peo­ple are local and know their ways.

Still, they often get arrest­ed and their gear gets con­fis­cat­ed.  

For­eign press jour­nal­ists can some­times get away with doing a sto­ry on Belarus, but for­get about get­ting your cam­era out in the cen­tre of Min­sk – police will usu­al­ly approach you with­in min­utes and ask for a local press ID. Belarus proud­ly comes sec­ond in the world by the num­ber of police per capi­ta, plus a huge KGB, and some­times it feels they are all in the cen­tre of Min­sk, so there is lit­tle chance of doing some­thing unno­ticed in this coun­try.

Giv­en Belarus’ image in the West, many jour­nal­ists are wor­ried about being spied on, so some­times even major media orga­ni­za­tions send their jour­nal­ists to Belarus as tourists. As a result, you can imag­ine the qual­i­ty of sto­ries. Don’t wor­ry, I know it’s bad, but it’s not so bad; there is a way to get a press accred­i­ta­tion and work in this coun­try legal­ly.

The way to go is to apply for a press accred­i­ta­tion to the For­eign Min­istry here. The press accred­i­ta­tion nice­ly comes in a pack­age with a let­ter of invi­ta­tion (they call it Visa sup­port) to an embassy of your choice, so you can pick it up in any coun­try at your con­ve­nience. Bet­ter apply in advance, they say on their web­site they can con­sid­er your appli­ca­tion for up to 2 months, but in prac­tice you should allow at least 10 days, bet­ter 2 weeks before your planned trip. And don’t wor­ry about being spied on – “rel­e­vant agen­cies” check on you when you apply for your Visa, not when you apply for the press accred­i­ta­tion.

In my expe­ri­ence, jour­nal­ists usu­al­ly do get visas to Belarus when they apply, so unless you are doing some­thing com­plete­ly ille­gal or under­cov­er, where “fly­ing under the radar” is absolute­ly cru­cial, I would sug­gest that you get a press ID.