• Actual
  • Law and the media
  • Helpful
  • Work areas and campaigns
  • Reviews and monitoring
  • BAJ wins the first Canada-UK Media Freedom Award. Andrei Bastunets’ speech

    BAJ receives Canada-UK Media Freedom Award  This was announced during the Global Conference for Media Freedom 2020.

    In his remarks, Andrei Bastunets, chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, stressed that the Award reflects the high opinion of the work of Belarusian journalists who are now working in extremely difficult conditions.

    During the ceremony, Dominic Raab, First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the UK, pointed out that the Award is a fitting tribute to courage, sacrifice and determination of Belarusian journalists.

    Below are BAJ acceptance remarks during the Global Conference for Media Freedom 2020.

     

    Dear friends,

    Thank you so much for this Media Free­dom Award. BAJ is so thrilled and proud to receive it from Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom, coun­tries with an old tra­di­tion of democ­ra­cy and free­dom of speech. I believe that this Award reflects your high opin­ion of the work of jour­nal­ists in Belarus, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the cur­rent human rights cri­sis in the after­math of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

    In just 3 months, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has record­ed over 400 gross vio­la­tions of jour­nal­ists’ rights.

    Reporters who cov­ered mass protests against elec­tion fraud and state vio­lence, have become vic­tims of vio­lence and fraud them­selves. They have been beat­en, their equip­ment dam­aged or seized, and they have been sent to jail by unfair court deci­sions.  

    Reporters worked lit­er­al­ly under bul­lets — in a coun­try that is not at war! Three jour­nal­ists were wound­ed. About 60 of our col­leagues went through short jail sen­tences. Right now, while I speak, 22 jour­nal­ists are behind bars, deprived of their free­dom for doing their job.

    We have already got used to los­ing access to inde­pen­dent web­sites «for tech­ni­cal rea­sons» dur­ing the most intense moments of polit­i­cal cam­paigns or dur­ing protests. But we could hard­ly imag­ine that in an «IT coun­try» as Belarus likes to call itself, there would be a com­plete Inter­net black­out for entire three days! And that mobile Inter­net would be blocked in Min­sk every week­end dur­ing protests!

    The author­i­ties did­n’t miss any chance to block news web­sites, either. Since August 9, many of the Inter­net news sites have become inac­ces­si­ble from Belarus. The coun­try’s most pop­u­lar por­tal TUT.by has just been deprived of its media sta­tus — thus, its reporters have lost their sta­tus and rights as jour­nal­ists.

    The gov­ern­ment did not stop at restrict­ing of the Inter­net.

    On flim­sy pre­texts or with no pre­texts at all, state-owned monop­oly com­pa­nies refused to print and dis­trib­ute the Nar­o­d­naya Volya, Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus, Bel­gaze­ta, Svo­bod­nye Novosti Plus news­pa­pers that report­ed on police vio­lence dur­ing protests. 

    Gaze­ta Slonim­skaya is under siege, as its lead­ers were forced to leave the coun­try under threat of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

    The author­i­ties are try­ing to restrict the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion not only with­in the coun­try, but also abroad. 

    Dozens, if not hun­dreds, of for­eign jour­nal­ists were denied accred­i­ta­tion, and as a result. an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cov­er the elec­tion and its after­math. The gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly stripped the accred­i­ta­tion from all for­eign jour­nal­ists with per­ma­nent accred­i­ta­tion.

    Deten­tions.

    Fines. 

    Jail time.

    Revoked accred­i­ta­tion.

    Depor­ta­tions.

    Oppres­sion of media.

    Crim­i­nal cas­es…

    — these are the real­i­ties of Belarus today.

    In fact, we faced sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances 25 years ago, when in Sep­tem­ber 1995, 38 jour­nal­ists joined their efforts to resist the pres­sure of the gov­ern­ment of the then-new Pres­i­dent Lukashen­ka.

    Today we have grown to 1,400 mem­bers.

     Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

    Yes, we are work­ing under extreme pres­sure right now – but one can only put pres­sure on some­thing that shows resis­tance.

    Blocked Inter­net web­sites cre­ate «mir­rors» and turn to telegram chan­nels and social net­works. Vol­un­teers dis­trib­ute news­pa­pers. Jour­nal­ists spend nights out­side police sta­tions and pris­ons where their col­leagues are kept…

    I have great respect for all those who work «in the field», despite all risks and threats.

    Those who work in the news­rooms. 

    Those who refused to mul­ti­ply lies and left the pro­pa­gan­dis­tic state media.

    Those who stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with their col­leagues, and help them in word and deed.

    Every­one who con­tributes to spread­ing infor­ma­tion about the polit­i­cal and human rights cri­sis in our coun­try both in Belarus and far beyond its bor­ders.

    And it spreads far beyond the moldy state-con­trolled media space that the «men in black» are try­ing to cre­ate.

    Today, the law does not defend us.

    Today, we defend the law.

    I am hon­ored and thank you again for sup­port­ing Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism in these dif­fi­cult times.

    The most important news and materials in our Telegram channel — subscribe!
    @bajmedia
    Most read
    Every day send to your mailbox: actual offers (grants, vacancies, competitions, scholarships), announcements of events (lectures, performances, presentations, press conferences) and good content.

    Subscribe

    * indicates required

    By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to the Privacy Policy