Reporters without Borders Award Two Belarusian Journalists

The award­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place on Decem­ber 10 in Vien­na.

Natal­lia Radz­i­na won the Press Free­dom Award for her arti­cle “Stop kiss­ing dic­ta­tors’ hands”, Yahor Martsi­novich for the jour­nal­ist inves­ti­ga­tion regard­ing the liv­ing con­di­tions of Belaru­sian offi­cials in the elite vil­lage Drazdy.

The Award jury, which is patron­ized by UNESCO, includes Freimut Duve, the first OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Free­dom of the Media, Dun­ja Mija­tovic, an OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Free­dom of the Media, Eva Nowot­ny, the Pres­i­dent of the Aus­tri­an Com­mis­sion for UNESCO, Wolf­gang Petritsch, an Aus­tri­an Ambas­sador at the OECD in Paris, Albert Rohan, For­mer Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Aus­tri­an min­istry of for­eign affairs, Rubi­na Moehring, the Pres­i­dent of Reporters With­out Bor­ders Aus­tria.

At the cer­e­mo­ny, the OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Free­dom of the Media Dun­ja Mija­tovic said:

“Mar­tin Luther King said: “The ulti­mate mea­sure of a man is not where he stands in moments of com­fort and con­ve­nience, but where he stands at times of chal­lenge and con­tro­ver­sy”. When hope for the changes fades away there always are peo­ple among us who fight for free­dom and are eager to change the world. My 6 years’ expe­ri­ence as an OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Free­dom of the Media tells me that we live in very dif­fi­cult times; these are the times of seri­ous chal­lenges. Today, we need jour­nal­ists more than ever — they mon­i­tor and unmask the author­i­ties.

Win­ners of the Reporters With­out Bor­ders Prize are exact­ly the jour­nal­ists who work in dif­fi­cult and uncom­fort­able times,” quotes charter’97 the OSCE Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Free­dom of the Media. “Belarus is very close, here in Europe, just as my native Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina. We should con­stant­ly talk about prob­lems in such coun­tries, con­stant­ly men­tion names of peo­ple who suf­fer in pris­ons.”

Albert Rohan, the for­mer Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Aus­tri­an min­istry of for­eign affairs, not­ed that in 2015 Belarus took the 157th place among 180 coun­tries in the report of the orga­ni­za­tion “Reporters with­out Bor­ders” of and 195th place among 197 places in the rank­ing of free­dom of speech, pub­lished by Free­dom House.

“This means that Belarus is in the last place in terms of free­dom of speech among Euro­pean coun­tries. At the same time the EU has sus­pend­ed the sanc­tions against the Lukashenka’s regime due to its con­struc­tive role in the Ukrain­ian con­flict. But these signs of “détente” should not deceive any­one, as before, there is an author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment in Belarus, the media are under pres­sure, and the Inter­net is often blocked. Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists deserve our recog­ni­tion, because in spite of repres­sions, they con­tin­ue to do their impor­tant work.”

Rubi­na Moehring, the Pres­i­dent of Reporters with­out Bor­ders, not­ed:

“Arti­cle 19 of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights states that every­one has the right to free­dom of speech, free­dom of expres­sion of opin­ion and to dis­perse and receive infor­ma­tion through media. Lukashen­ka has long been referred to as Europe’s last dic­ta­tor. Once, in per­son, Ms. Radz­i­na explained to me that because of the inabil­i­ty to speak crit­i­cal­ly many peo­ple in the coun­try go into inter­nal exile. Hear­ing this, we under­stand how well we live in our own coun­tries. There­fore, we must sup­port those who have the courage to express their opin­ion open­ly in such coun­tries as Belarus. All human beings are born free and equal in dig­ni­ty and rights. Every­one is enti­tled to all the rights and free­doms with­out any dis­tinc­tion, polit­i­cal or oth­er opin­ion, nation­al or social ori­gin.”