Independent media advocate and journalist tell of challenges covering Belarus’s upcoming elections and coronavirus

Over three days start­ing June 25, Belaru­sian author­i­ties arrest­ed sev­er­al pop­u­lar blog­gers: Ihor Losik, Ser­hei Petrukhin, Alek­san­dr Kabanau, Volodimir Neron­s­ki, Alek­san­dr Andreyev, Volodimir Tsiganovich, and Ser­hei Sparish, accord­ing to the inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ)External link and sta­te­Ex­ter­nal link and inde­pen­den­tEx­ter­nal link media. They are accused of vio­lat­ing pub­lic orderEx­ter­nal link, accord­ing to reports, but Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al called their ongo­ing deten­tionEx­ter­nal link a “full-scale purge of dis­sent­ing voic­es.”

That inci­dent fol­lowed anoth­er spate of arrests between May 7 and May 15, when Belaru­sian author­i­ties detained five jour­nal­ists for 10 days each on charges that they had par­tic­i­pat­ed in ral­lies for an oppo­si­tion fig­ure Siarhei Tsikhanous­ki when they had actu­al­ly been report­ing on the ral­lies, accord­ing to CPJ research. Tsikhanous­ki, a Belaru­sian vlog­ger, had sought to run for pres­i­dent but was barredEx­ter­nal link by the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion. 

Some reporters cov­er­ing coro­n­avirus have also faced threats. On March 25, Siarhei Sat­suk was detained and a bribery inves­ti­ga­tion was opened against him. Press free­dom advo­cates say he was tar­get­ed for his report­ing on COVID-19, as CPJ doc­u­ment­ed. He was released on April 4 with­out being for­mal­ly charged, accord­ing to news report­sEx­ter­nal link, but the inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues.

Amid these devel­op­ments, CPJ spoke about press free­dom in Belarus via phone with Barys Haret­s­ki, the deputy head of BAJ, and Yury Drakakhrust, a Prague-based cor­re­spon­dent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty, which is fund­ed by the U.S. Con­gress. Drakakhrust often vis­its Belarus and writes sto­ries for Belaru­sian inde­pen­dent media. Their answers have been edit­ed for length and clar­i­ty. 

What is the over­all state of the media in Belarus today?

Drakakhrust: The main prob­lem is that the state monop­o­lizes the infor­ma­tion space in the coun­try and is now try­ing to do even more to con­trol non-state media. The state has man­aged to monop­o­lize TV broad­cast­ing com­plete­ly. Social media feels the pres­sure, too. The state wants inde­pen­dent inter­net sites to get as lit­tle paid adver­tis­ing as pos­si­ble and does every­thing it can to achieve this goal [by pri­vate­ly pres­sur­ing com­pa­nies not to adver­tise with inde­pen­dent out­lets]. In Belarus, the state has a lot of pow­er. How­ev­er, Belarus is not North Korea and rel­a­tive free­dom of speech exists.

Haret­s­ki: All tele­vi­sion chan­nels are state owned, and there is one inde­pen­dent satel­lite sta­tion, Bel­sat TV, which broad­casts from Poland. It has cor­re­spon­dents in Belarus. Peo­ple usu­al­ly watch Bel­sat TV online. Many state-owned TV chan­nels rebroad­cast Russ­ian offi­cial chan­nels. When it comes to news­pa­pers, there are fed­er­al and region­al news­pa­pers, all con­trolled by the state. These news­pa­pers have a very large cir­cu­la­tion and have some influ­ence. In Belarus, there’s a phe­nom­e­non known as “oblig­a­tory sub­scrip­tion.” If you, say, work in the police, you are oblig­at­ed to sub­scribe to a news­pa­per pub­lished by the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or [so that pub­lic employ­ees are exposed to the same opin­ion]. There is not a sin­gle radio sta­tion in Belarus which has seri­ous, inde­pen­dent con­tent but there is one inde­pen­dent news agency, Bela­PAN. [Editor’s note: A recent report in Belaru­sian state media denie­sEx­ter­nal link that “oblig­a­tory sub­scrip­tion” exists.]

What is the influ­ence of the inter­net and social media on soci­ety? 

Haret­s­ki: Inde­pen­dent media start­ed to pro­lif­er­ate on the inter­net in 2005 and 2006. In Belarus, Tut.by became the largest inde­pen­dent online news out­let with some one mil­lion read­ers per day. Mean­while, there many inde­pen­dent local or region­al online news out­lets. There are also state-owned news out­lets, but they are not pop­u­lar. Who would read an offi­cial news site about COVID-19, which says that every­thing is going well? Peo­ple see the prob­lems with their eyes and turn to the inde­pen­dent sites. If you com­pare the sit­u­a­tion with Rus­sia, [where the inter­net is more restrict­ed] it is much bet­ter in Belarus. Belaru­sian author­i­ties did every­thing to make sure the inter­net reached every cor­ner of the coun­try. It’s fun­ny — now this effort has back­fired on the author­i­ties. 

How is the work of inde­pen­dent media affect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic? 

Haret­s­ki: The main prob­lem is get­ting infor­ma­tion as the state does every­thing not to pro­vide it. The state for­bids offi­cials and work­ers from speak­ing direct­ly to the press. Doc­tors must get per­mis­sionEx­ter­nal link from a press offi­cer of Min­istry of Health to speak with jour­nal­ists. If jour­nal­ists get infor­ma­tion that COVID-19 is spread­ing rapid­ly in a par­tic­u­lar region, they can’t ver­i­fy the infor­ma­tion if health author­i­ties won’t speak with them. The Min­istry of Health’s last press con­fer­ence­Ex­ter­nal link took place on April 17. So jour­nal­ists try to find sources on the ground but it is risky. There were many cas­es when jour­nal­ists were pun­ished for not get­ting per­mis­sion from the Min­istry of Health [to speak with a med­ical source]. 

Drakakhrust: COVID-19 has strength­ened inde­pen­dent media. It also deep­ened the con­fronta­tion between state media and inde­pen­dent media. Inde­pen­dent media is unit­ed in its crit­i­cism of state-owned media and of the “original”External link way in which state author­i­ties are deal­ing with COVID-19. 

Belaru­sian media laws are very restric­tive. How are free­lancers specif­i­cal­ly affect­ed? 

Haret­s­ki: Free­lancers are out­lawed. The fed­er­al Law of Mass Media defines jour­nal­ists as peo­ple who work for one media out­let or anoth­er. You can­not just be a jour­nal­ist. So free­lancers are try­ing to get press cre­den­tials from media out­lets. It is a big prob­lem for those who pro­duce work for Bel­sat TV and on the whole for those who write for for­eign media. These peo­ple are finedEx­ter­nal link. Last year, 180 fines were imposed for such an activ­i­ty. In ear­ly June, a cou­ple of jour­nal­ists were fined for a free­lance activ­i­ty. As a rule, free­lancers usu­al­ly get a max­i­mum fine, some US$500, per “ille­gal­ly” free­lanced piece.  

How are the upcom­ing elec­tions affect­ing press free­dom? 

Haret­s­ki: The pres­sure on the media increas­es as the elec­tion cam­paign is fought in the media. COVID-19 is now the sec­ond most impor­tant sto­ry, after elec­tions. Start­ing on June 3, we have a new Min­is­ter of Infor­ma­tion, Ihor Lut­skyi. On June 7, Lut­skyi said in an inter­viewEx­ter­nal link [on the state-run sta­tion Cap­i­tal TV] that inde­pen­dent media should be more tight­ly con­trolled. Even before Lut­skyi became min­is­ter, news out­lets were for­bid­denEx­ter­nal link from pub­lish­ing polls about vot­er pref­er­ences. Of course, the pres­sure will grow. There will be ral­lies before the elec­tions, and the police often aim to arrest jour­nal­ists who are cov­er­ing ral­lies. The author­i­ties are less afraid of activists than jour­nal­ists, whom they fear will con­duct inter­views and spread infor­ma­tion. 

[Editor’s note: CPJ emailed the Belarus Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion that over­sees media out­lets for com­ment on the fol­low­ing claims in the inter­views above: that the gov­ern­ment pri­vate­ly pres­sures com­pa­nies not to adver­tise with inde­pen­dent media; that pub­lic employ­ees are “oblig­at­ed” by author­i­ties to sub­scribe to cer­tain news out­lets; that the gov­ern­ment for­bids med­ical pro­fes­sion­als from speak­ing with jour­nal­ists with­out express per­mis­sion, and that jour­nal­ists have been pun­ished for not secur­ing such per­mis­sion; that free­lancers are ille­gal in Belarus and fined if they are found to be report­ing with­out a press card from a rec­og­nized media out­let; that 180 fines were issued to free­lancers last year and that two jour­nal­ists were fined recent­ly; and that Belaru­sian police aim to arrest jour­nal­ists cov­er­ing polit­i­cal ral­lies. CPJ did not receive a response.]