E‑newsletter: Mass media in Belarus. May-august 2024, #3 (77) 2024

Sit­u­a­tion in belarus mass media field: may-august 2024. Review. Down­load PDF.

Repres­sion against inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and blog­gers as well as cen­sor­ship of mass media con­tin­ued in Belarus in May – August 2024.

In par­tic­u­lar:

• the regime in pow­er inten­si­fied its pres­sure on the employ­ees of inde­pen­dent media projects in exile; the media work­ers’ rel­a­tives in Belarus were sub­ject­ed to harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion,
• the Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­tin­ued crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists both inside the coun­try and in exile. The jour­nal­ists and blog­gers who are out­side the coun­try’s bor­ders were reg­u­lar­ly con­vict­ed in accor­dance with the so-called spe­cial pro­ceed­ings, i.e. in absen­tia. Thus, court ver­dicts were hand­ed down against 9 jour­nal­ists (4 of them — in absen­tia) in the peri­od of May – August 2024, 
• 33 media work­ers remained behind bars in Belarus. The con­vict­ed jour­nal­ists Kseniya Lut­ski­na, Dzmit­ry Luk­sha and his wife Pali­na Palavin­ka were par­doned and released from deten­tion with­in the peri­od under review, 
• the regime in pow­er fur­ther applied the counter-extrem­ism leg­is­la­tion to lim­it access to inde­pen­dent sources of infor­ma­tion. Deten­tions con­tin­ued for any form of coop­er­a­tion with «extrem­ist» inde­pen­dent media in Belarus,
• the Belaru­sian state-owned pro­pa­gan­dist media cir­cum­vent­ed the sanc­tions imposed on them, among oth­er, by vio­lat­ing the rules of broad­cast­ing sports com­pe­ti­tions.

Quite a few jour­nal­ists in exile were pros­e­cut­ed in crim­i­nal cas­es

Thus, Min­sk Region­al Court pro­nounced ver­dicts in absen­tia to 20 peo­ple in the so-called ‘Tsikhanouskaya’s Ana­lysts’ case on July 2, 2024. The Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus rec­og­nized them as par­tic­i­pants of ‘Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s Ana­lysts’ extrem­ist for­ma­tion. The jour­nal­ists of Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media Yury Drakakhrust and Han­na Liubako­va were crim­i­nal­ly charged in absen­tia. Each of the media work­ers was sen­tenced to 10 years in prison.

On August 2, the ver­dict in absen­tia was announced to Ales Kirke­vich, who was found guilty of ‘facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties’ (Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code) and sen­tenced to 7 years of impris­on­ment and fined 24,000 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. EUR 6,700).

The case of jour­nal­ist Uladz­imir Khilmanovich was con­sid­ered by Hrod­na Region­al Court in accor­dance with the so-called spe­cial pro­ceed­ings with­in the peri­od under review. The media work­er was accused of ‘facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties’ and ‘tak­ing part in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion’ (Arti­cles 361–4 and 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code). On August 19, the jour­nal­ist was sen­tenced in absen­tia to 5 years of impris­on­ment in a high secu­ri­ty colony and fined 40,000 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. EUR 11,200).

Report­ed­ly, a num­ber of crim­i­nal cas­es were filed against jour­nal­ists in exile in May-August 2024. The list of affect­ed media work­ers includ­ed the Deputy Chair­per­son of BAJ Barys Haret­s­ki, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists Zmitser Kaza­ke­vich, Iry­na Char­ni­au­ka, Zmitser Lupach, Ihar Kazmi­ar­chak, Zmitser Pankavets as well as the founder and head of Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter (BIC) Stanis­lau Ivashke­vich, the author of his video pro­grams Siarhei Chaly, three for­mer BIC employ­ees Ali­ak­san­dr Yara­she­vich, Ali­ak­sei Karpe­ka, and Vol­ha Alkhi­men­ka, who cur­rent­ly work as the jour­nal­ists of «Bureau Media», and oth­ers.

The crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of blog­gers in absen­tia con­tin­ued with­in the peri­od under review. Thus, Andrei Pavuk and Vol­ha Pavuk were crim­i­nal­ly charged for “lead­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion” for their «Rud­abel­skaya pakazukha» media project.

They were sen­tenced to 12 years of impris­on­ment in a high-secu­ri­ty colony and 8 years in prison, respec­tive­ly. Also, huge fines were imposed on both of them.

An opera singer Marhary­ta Liauchuk, a blog­ger Ilya Saliank­ou, and a musi­cian Uladzis­lau Navazhy­lau were also sen­tenced to impris­on­ment for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in this project. 

A crim­i­nal case was filed against the blog­ger Anton Matol­ka in Belarus with­in the peri­od under review. It was based on 13 arti­cles of Belarus Crim­i­nal Code. Among oth­er things, the cre­ator of «Belaru­sian Hayun» Telegram chan­nel and pre­vi­ous­ly an urban­ist blog­ger was accused of an attempt to seize pow­er, extrem­ism and high trea­son. 

A film direc­tor and jour­nal­ist Andrei Hniot is under threat of extra­di­tion to Belarus based on the deci­sion of the Supreme Court of Ser­bia dat­ed June 13, 2024. He col­lab­o­rat­ed with SOS.by project, rec­og­nized as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties. (The jour­nal­ist was detained by the Ser­bian bor­der ser­vice, since he was want­ed inter­na­tion­al­ly at the request of the Belaru­sian Bureau of Inter­pol.)

4 jour­nal­ists were detained, and 3 media work­ers were sen­tenced to dif­fer­ent terms of admin­is­tra­tive arrest in Belarus in May-August 2024

Pres­sure on jour­nal­ists who were forced to leave Belarus and con­tin­ue to work abroad was car­ried out through search­es at their places of reg­is­tra­tion in their native coun­try with­in the frame­work of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in absen­tia, intim­i­da­tion of rel­a­tives, threats to con­fis­cate prop­er­ty for the ben­e­fit of the state (includ­ing hous­ing). Thus, crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tors searched and seized the apart­ment, owned by Zmit­si­er Kaza­ke­vich, a jour­nal­ist from Vit­sieb­sk, on May 16, 2024. 

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists reg­is­tered 26 search­es in the peri­od under review (main­ly in June-July). 21 of these search­es took place in the apart­ments of col­leagues who have fled Belarus and con­tin­ue to work in the media. In most cas­es, the law enforce­ment agents showed search war­rants with­in crim­i­nal cas­es, filed against the affect­ed media work­ers.

Inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists were harassed by the state-owned pro­pa­ganda media. In par­tic­u­lar, the exiled jour­nal­ists were sub­ject­ed to insults and defama­tion. On July 23, secu­ri­ty forces announced that they had filed crim­i­nal cas­es against two hosts of the ‘Zerka­lo’ Tik­Tok chan­nel and forced their par­ents to record a video reel with words of con­dem­na­tion against their chil­dren. 

Three more media projects were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist for­ma­tions with­in the peri­od under review, name­ly Orsha.eu, Media IQ and «The Ordi­nary Morn­ing». More­over, the Web-resources «We are not slaves», «The Peo­ple’s Reporter» (a project of ex-polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and blog­gers Ali­ak­san­dr Kabanau and Siarhei Pia­trukhin), as well as the blog­ger Aleh Zhalnou’s social media were labeled as extrem­ist for­ma­tion, in May-August 2024, too. 

Numer­ous online-sources and pub­li­ca­tions were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist mate­ri­als by the regime in pow­er. Most of them were Insta­gram and Tik­Tok accounts, run by oppo­si­tion groups and mass media. As before, the regime in pow­er applied the admin­is­tra­tive per­se­cu­tion for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion deemed “extrem­ist”.

It was for the first time that, report­ed­ly, a crim­i­nal case was filed for facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties due to a sin­gle repost of a news item from an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» web­site. Pre­vi­ous­ly, such cas­es were usu­al­ly clas­si­fied as admin­is­tra­tive offense. The Main Direc­torate for Com­bat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus stat­ed: “It was enough to send a sin­gle mes­sage to pub­lic chats, pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished by an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion, to ini­ti­ate a crim­i­nal case under Art. 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus. This right­eous method will be fur­ther active­ly used from now on and such delib­er­ate actions will be severe­ly pun­ished.” 

The impris­oned jour­nal­ists Ali­ak­san­dr Ziank­ou, Ihar Karnei, Ales Marchanka, Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk as well as the con­vict­ed in absen­tia media work­er Ali­ak­san­dr Kirke­vich and the impris­oned blog­ger Ali­ak­san­dr Ihnat­siuk were added by the author­i­ties to the List of cit­i­zens of Belarus, for­eign cit­i­zens or state­less per­sons, involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties with­in the peri­od under review. 

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion and oth­er gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies lim­it­ed access to «unwant­ed» infor­ma­tion through cen­sor­ship restric­tions

Thus, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion restrict­ed access to the Web­sites baranovichi24.by (due to the pres­ence of a link to the «extrem­ist» media) and Katolik.life (with­out pro­vid­ing any rea­son). The lat­ter was pre­vi­ous­ly blocked in Rus­sia, prob­a­bly since it touched upon the top­ic of the war in Ukraine.

The stat­ed-owned CTV chan­nel cen­sored the broad­cast of the Euro­pean Foot­ball Cham­pi­onship, hav­ing tak­en the last-minute deci­sion to avoid show­ing the match­es of the Ukrain­ian nation­al team to the Belaru­sian audi­ence.  It was done despite the fact that the match­es had been includ­ed in the TV pro­gram. 

The Web-archive of ‘Cul­ture and Art’ hold­ing com­pa­ny was blocked for pub­lic access in the peri­od under review. It con­tained online exhibits, rep­re­sent­ing the whole his­to­ry of Belaru­sian art since the begin­ning of the 21^st cen­tu­ry. Among oth­er it con­tained quite a few pub­li­ca­tions about the peo­ple of cul­ture and art, who appeared in prison or in exile, and whose works of art do not meet the cur­rent ide­o­log­i­cal require­ments. 

On June 25, the Bel­sat TV chan­nel was blocked for pub­lic access in Rus­sia (among oth­er for­eign media) in response to the blocked access to a num­ber of Russ­ian media in the EU. 

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion sup­ple­ment­ed the list of sports com­pe­ti­tions that can be broad­cast in Belarus with­out the rights hold­ers’ con­sent. These are the Nations League match­es and friend­ly match­es with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Belaru­sian nation­al foot­ball team. They were allowed to be shown with­out UEFA’s con­sent.

On August 5, the Euro­pean Union intro­duced new sanc­tions against a num­ber of Belaru­sian law-enforce­ment offi­cers and pro­pa­gan­dists, includ­ing Iry­na Akulovich, the CEO of «BelTA» News Agency, Dzmit­ry Zhuk, the ex-head of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s press ser­vice, and Miki­ta Rachy­lous­ki, the host of «Sen­ate» TV pro­gram on the CTV chan­nel. The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus called these sanc­tions the «gross­est vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law» in a cor­re­spond­ing state­ment, deliv­ered on the same day.