Index Censorship, ARTICLE 19: Access the toolkit to join the Andrei and Irina campaign

A jour­nal­ist and human rights defend­er who pre­vi­ous­ly worked at both Index on Cen­sor­ship and ARTICLE 19, Andrei is now fac­ing charges of ‘trea­son to the state’. If con­vict­ed, Andrei will face up to 15 years in prison.

His part­ner Iri­na Zlobi­na was also detained ‘on sus­pi­cion of financ­ing protest activ­i­ties’ and has since been charged with ‘organ­i­sa­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order’. She is fac­ing up to three years in prison.

We are call­ing on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to join the sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign, and in urg­ing the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to release them.

Read  full state­ment

How to join the campaign

 The toolkit 

• Use one of our ban­ners as your back­ground pho­to on social media to enhance your mes­sage
• Use one of our sam­ple social media posts to spread the mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty
• Use the hash­tag #Free­An­dreiandI­ri­na

Social media

• Share and ampli­fy videos record­ed by friends and part­ners of the cam­paign on your social media feeds
• Share social media posts by ARTICLE 19 and Index on Cen­sor­ship

Sign the petition

It’s impor­tant to bring Andrei and Irina’s plight to pub­lic atten­tion and to encour­age peo­ple to show their sup­port for them. Sign the peti­tion and demand that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties release Andrei and Iri­na now.

Col­lec­tive­ly we will con­tin­ue to demand jus­tice on their behalf and on behalf of the many Belaru­sians fac­ing ongo­ing and bla­tant trav­es­ties of jus­tice.

Write a letter

Andrei, Iri­na, and all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Belarus are sub­ject to polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed per­se­cu­tion. Their crime? Tire­less efforts to oppose the Belaru­sian regime’s crack­down on civ­il soci­ety and to defend fun­da­men­tal human rights. They need to know we are think­ing of them and will not cease to demand jus­tice on their behalf. You can write a per­son­al let­ter to Andrei and Irina. Let them know that their efforts are appre­ci­at­ed and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty stands by them.

Background

Since the fraud­u­lent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in August 2020, the author­i­ties under Pres­i­dent Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenko have detained tens of thou­sands of peace­ful pro­test­ers. As of Jan­u­ary 2022, almost 1000 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers remain behind bars. Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), author­i­ties have also blocked sev­er­al news and media web­sites. Civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions ded­i­cat­ed to defend­ing free­dom of expres­sion have been forcibly closed. Many Telegram chan­nels pub­lish­ing inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion have been labelled ‘extrem­ist’.  ARTICLE 19 close­ly mon­i­tors the rapid­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion in Belarus and reg­u­lar­ly joins inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tives call­ing for jus­tice and for the pro­tec­tion of fun­da­men­tal rights of the Belaru­sian peo­ple, includ­ing right to protest, media free­dom and free­dom of expres­sion.

Resources

Social Media

Use one of these sam­ple social media posts to spread the mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty and to join us in call­ing for the imme­di­ate release of Andrei and Iri­na. Don’t for­get to add the hash­tag: #Free­An­dreiAndI­ri­na and include tags so more peo­ple can learn about the cam­paign.

You can find images for var­i­ous Social Media here.

Twitter

Click on the image below to open it and down­load

Facebook

Click on the image below to open it and down­load

Instagram

Click on the image below to open it and down­load

Access the campaign’s Google Dri­ve and down­load resources, includ­ing social media ban­ners and oth­er assets to help spread the word and sup­port the cam­paign.

 Videos in solidarity