#IFJ Blog: the journalists' jailer

The Council of Europe's Safety Of Journalists Platform catalogues where media workers are most likely to suffer arbitrary detention - and we should all be concerned

The president has no respect for democracy. He denounces the 'mass media' and demands that journalists are 'locked up', Independent news platforms have struggled to operate against his onslaught.

Welcome to Belarus, the European country with more journalists are in jail that any other, where more than 30 Belarusian publications are forced to operate from abroad, and the journalists' union has been sanctioned as a 'terrorist organisation'.

The country's president, Alexander Lukashenka, has been in power since his office was created in 1994. In recent years, as his 're-elections' have looked ever more rigged, he has repeatedly issued decrees and signed into law provisions to restrict media freedom.

For an authoritative flavour of media life in Minsk, the Council of Europe's Safety of Journalists Platform is a good starting point. Its authoritative catalogue of media workers in prison is maintained as a public record to which states are invited to respond. The 38 reporters it lists as locked up in Belarus exceeds even the 30 in Russian prisons (from a country with a population 15 times greater).

15 years for 'inciting social hatred'

The case of Ihar Losik is typical. A reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, he is three years into a 15 year prison sentence for 'organising mass riots' and 'inciting social hatred'.

At the time of his trial, RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said: "Ihar Losik's closed-door trial has been an outrageous travesty of justice. We again call on the Lukashenka regime to stop their assault on news organisations and journalists like Ihar and let him return to his wife and daughter."

The EU's foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stanos condemned the conviction, as did Anthony Blinken, the US secretary of state.

During his trial, Losik's wife chided officials from the judiciary for having "trampled on every piece of legislation, all legal norms, even though your job is to protect them." She has since been imprisoned herself. Losik has twice tried to take his own life, and has been on hunger strike.

Union support continues in exile

Barys Haretski is vice president of the Belarusian Journalists Association, which currently operates in exile in Lithuania. "Despite the ban, we continue to work, supporting our colleagues," he told me. "We maintain legal support for journalists and the media, educational programs, information and analytical products. It is very important to preserve the Belarusian independent media sector now, as the Belarusian authorities are now very keen to capture the minds of the Belarusian audience with their propaganda."

Haretski encourages journalists elsewhere in the world to post on social media with pictures of his imprisoned colleagues as part of a 'solidarity marathon'. There is also a link to make financial contributions to the union.

"Keeping up the fight is not easy, but knowing that there are journalists elsewhere in the world who are taking an interest in what is happening in Belarus gives us a real boost," Haretski said.

Repression in Belarus is a real and ongoing tragedy for that country's 10 million people. They deserve all our help. But the lesson from Minsk has wider application. Wherever can be found a president who is dismissive of democracy, and who scapegoats the media, journalists, and all who care about free expression, should be building solidarity among those of a like mind.

Tim Dawson is deputy general secreatary of the IFJ

Published

11 December 2024

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