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For Belarusian journalists, a time for solidarity

Scores of independent journalists have been arrested in a wave of repression that has swept Belarus in recent months, but media workers there say they haven’t given up hope.

Under surveillance and facing detention, journalists appear more determined to do their jobs amid one of the harshest crackdowns on the media in the two decades since Belarus became independent, journalists in the former Soviet republic say.

“They are hardened already, they are trying to stick together, they are trying to show solidarity with each other,” says Alyaksandr Yanusik, an editor and reporter for the BelaPAN news agency in Minsk. He says many of his media co-workers are determined “not to compromise on principles” despite the risks.

News stand in Minsk, Belarus (Photo credit: OSCE)

President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who marks his 17th year in power on 20 July, unleashed his security forces on the press and opposition after being elected to a fourth term in December 2010. Although he won 80 percent of the vote in what was widely viewed as a rigged election, Lukashenko faces mounting public disquiet over rising prices and the country’s deteriorating Soviet-style economy.

The vote triggered public protests and a security crackdown that led to the arrest of most of the nine candidates who challenged Lukashenko and a continuing roundup of opposition supporters and demonstrators. Security forces - still bearing the Soviet-era name KGB - are crushing peaceful protests being organised through social networking sites.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) says 88 of its 1,100 members have been arrested since early June and several media workers have been attacked by plain-clothed thugs. KGB agents have seized journalists’ computers and camera equipment and are purportedly monitoring telephone conversations and e-mails of many reporters and editors.

A journalist being detained during a “silent protest action” in Minsk on July 13, 2011 (Photo credit: Belarusian Association of Journalists)

A brief era of media plurality that followed Belarus’ independence in 1991 ended when Lukashenko took power and re-introduced state control of broadcast media and most newspapers.

The regime allows a handful of print media to operate as “window dressing” to deter Western criticism, says one Minsk journalist who requested anonymity. But in the withering crackdown since the election, the government has sought to close some newspapers and has targeted journalists who report on demonstrations and dissidents.

Neighbouring Poland sponsors Belarusian-language Belsat TV and Radio Racja that are broadcast in Belarus, providing independent information. Poland, which took over the rotating presidency of the EU on 1 July, has also stepped up assistance to civil society groups in Belarus and hosts Belarusian students barred from their own universities for being critics of the regime.

Foreign journalists, including those working for the Polish broadcasters, have been denied visas or face deportation threats. Belarusian journalists endure the most severe treatment at the hands of the police, including arbitrary detention, bogus trials and confiscation of computers and cameras, BAJ and other media watchdogs say.

‘Campaign of repression’

Irina Khalip, correspondent for the crusading Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, received a suspended two-year sentence in May five months after her arrest for allegedly inciting unrest. On 15 July, a Minsk court rejected the appeal of Khalip’s husband, presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, to be released from prison on charges of organising protests.

Irina Khalip (Photo credit: English PEN)

Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza in the border town of Grodno on 5 July received a suspended three-year sentence for defaming the president after serving more than 90 days in gaol. Both Khalip and Poczobut can be returned to prison if they violate the conditions of their release.

Piotr Stasinski, deputy editor of the Polish daily, called the Poczobut case part of a “widespread campaign of repression” against the media and political dissenters.

“It effectively constitutes a form of intimidation and an attempt to force Poczobut and Gazeta Wyborcza to engage in self-censorship,” Stasinski says in an article published by the International Press Institute in Vienna, where he is a board member.

BelaPAM’s Yanusik says self-censorship is already evident as editors become more guarded. Journalists have also become more careful about meetings among themselves and with sources following recent detentions of reporters who were evidently tracked to meetings and arrested on the spot.

“I don’t censor myself,” says Yanusik, who also has worked for the media rights group Reporters Without Borders and Transitions, a Prague-based Internet journal that covers the post-Soviet region.

“I just try to be careful to make sure that every sentence I write I can be backed up with some source or some evidence. I’m trying to avoid making unfounded accusations, that’s normal for a journalist, but I don’t censor myself.”

Yanusik says support from international media watchdogs has helped reassure journalists in Belarus, and believes pressure from the Polish government might have helped Gazeta Wyborcza’s Poczobut avoid a far worse sentence.

There are other ways to help his country of 9.6 million people, Yanusik says. “What journalists can do is to come here and cover developments. What journalists can do for journalists - solidarity is the best thing.”

 

Tags: aleksandr lukashenko, belapan, belarus, belarusian association of journalists baj, broadcast media, censorship, detention, dictatorship, english pen, european union, gazeta wyborcza, grodno, international press institute in vienna, irina khalip, journalism, kgb, media, media plurality, media rights, media watchdog, minsk, novaya gazeta, poland, polish government, radio racja, reporters without borders, repression, self-censorship, social networking,

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