Belarus: ahead of sham election, RSF files ICC complaint for Lukashenko’s crimes against humanity targeting journalists

As the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion approach­es, Belarus’ state media are deliv­er­ing pro­pa­gan­da that por­trays inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and media out­lets as extrem­ists, echo­ing the log­ic of the repres­sive laws intro­duced by Lukashenko’s regime. From 15 to 17 Jan­u­ary, the state-run tele­vi­sion net­work ONT aired inter­views con­duct­ed by a pro­pa­gan­dist with three impris­oned jour­nal­ists from Radyio Svabo­da (the Belaru­sian ser­vice of the US-fund­ed broad­cast­er Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty, RFE/RL): Ihar Karnei, Ihar Losik, and Andrei Kuznechyk. Due to the manip­u­lat­ed footage and fierce intim­i­da­tion of these jour­nal­ists, they appeared to express regret for their work at RFE/RL, por­trayed as an extrem­ist out­let that spreads fake news, incites riots, and pro­motes over­throw­ing the gov­ern­ment.

A state policy of repression

Since his con­test­ed re-elec­tion in August 2020, Alexan­der Lukashenko has orches­trat­ed a wide­spread, sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign of per­se­cu­tion against jour­nal­ists, aim­ing for their com­plete erad­i­ca­tion. Their “crime” is that they dared to cov­er unprece­dent­ed peace­ful protests demand­ing free and trans­par­ent elec­tions — and the after­math of these demon­stra­tions. As ear­ly as 2021, Lukashenko declared that efforts to “restore order in the infor­ma­tion space” were near­ing com­ple­tion.

RSF has doc­u­ment­ed this state pol­i­cy, with help from the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), its part­ner. The find­ings include 589 cas­es of arbi­trary arrests of inde­pen­dent media pro­fes­sion­als in a coun­try that had about 2,000 jour­nal­ists just five years ago. At least 43 jour­nal­ists are still in prison, includ­ing Mary­na Zolata­va, the for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the country’s most wide­ly read media out­let, TUT.BY, which was shut down by the regime in 2021.

Journalists forced into exile

Mass arrests, arbi­trary deten­tions, vio­lence, destruc­tion of pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment, forced era­sure of images, raids, shut­tered media out­lets, wide­ly-cir­cu­lat­ed videos of humil­i­at­ing forced con­fes­sions, cen­sor­ship, and var­i­ous forms of pres­sure — these acts of per­se­cu­tion, con­sti­tut­ing crimes against human­i­ty, have pro­pelled the mass exo­dus of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists, pri­mar­i­ly to Poland and Lithua­nia. Forced exile alone is clas­si­fied as a crime against human­i­ty under the cat­e­go­ry of forcible trans­fer of pop­u­la­tion.

Even abroad, jour­nal­ists are not safe. The ille­git­i­mate pres­i­dent has sought to cre­ate an inescapable cli­mate of ter­ror, going as far as divert­ing a plane fly­ing through Belaru­sian air­space in May 2021 to arrest an exiled blog­ger. With­in 48 hours of this unprece­dent­ed tac­tic, RSF filed a com­plaint against Alexan­der Lukashenko with the Lithuan­ian Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office for “hijack­ing of an air­craft with ter­ror­ist intent,” lead­ing to the open­ing of an inves­ti­ga­tion. Beyond in absen­tia pros­e­cu­tions and the intim­i­da­tion of rel­a­tives remain­ing in Belarus, some jour­nal­ists now face asset seizures by the author­i­ties.

For the jour­nal­ists still in Belarus, often due to fam­i­ly oblig­a­tions, aban­don­ing jour­nal­ism does not guar­an­tee any reprieve. Author­i­ties tar­get them for past pub­li­ca­tions, often under accu­sa­tions of “extrem­ism.” Fear­ful of reper­cus­sions, their fam­i­lies some­times refuse to pub­li­cise their deten­tion.

Widespread persecution

In its com­plaint, RSF pro­vid­ed the ICC Pros­e­cu­tor with detailed evi­dence and sta­tis­tics illus­trat­ing the scope and sever­i­ty of these crimes, demon­strat­ing the sys­tem­at­ic and state-dri­ven nature of the attack on Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists.

Arrests and impris­on­ments since August 2020:

• 589 arbi­trary arrests tar­get­ing 397 media pro­fes­sion­als (some arrest­ed mul­ti­ple times).
• 43 jour­nal­ists remain in prison.

The forced dis­place­ment of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the BAJ:

• Between 500 and 600 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have been forced into exile.
• Around 200 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have sought refuge in Lithua­nia.
• Around 300 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have sought refuge in Poland.

Belarus, one of the world’s largest jails for jour­nal­ists:

• Ranked 4th in the world for the high­est num­ber of impris­oned jour­nal­ists as of Decem­ber 2024, behind Chi­na, Myan­mar, and Israel.
• Holds the high­est per capi­ta rate of impris­oned jour­nal­ists world­wide.