Harassment of the Belarusian press has been on the upswing in the run-up to the presidential election that has been scheduled for next spring. What with the information ministry's repeated warnings, police raids, tax inspections and the country's new media law, press freedom is now severely compromised in Belarus. After receiving a series of information ministry warnings, two leading opposition...
The Belarusian Supreme Court has upheld a government order that will obstruct the work of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), the country’s most prominent press freedom and media support organisation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The court backed a directive issued in January by the Ministry of Justice that orders the association, known as BAJ, to halt...
Investigative journalist Maryna Koktysh, the deputy editor of the Minsk-based independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya, is being continually harassed over her coverage of a case involving senior police officers and interior ministry officials in the southeastern Belarus city of Homyel, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The independent press has just done its duty by reporting...
The Belarusian police are increasingly harassing and intimidating independent journalists by charging them with relatively minor offences, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. In the latest case, Ivan Shulha, a journalist who works for the privately-owned satellite television station Belsat TV and who is an active member of the independent Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ), was...
Death threats have been made against Iryna Khalip, Belarus correspondent for the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In a memo to Novaya Gazeta, Khalip said she received threatening email, phone calls, and a telegram from anonymous senders who warned her not to publish the investigative report she wrote and...
Four days after a joint international press freedom mission to Belarus, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Tuesday called on the Belarusian government to stop obstructing the work of journalists working for foreign news media. The press freedom organisation has signed a statement issued by the mission at the end of its five-day visit noting that: “Accreditation of journalists working for Belarus...
There have been continuing threats against journalists working for the Charter 97 news and opposition website (charter97.org) in Belarus, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In the latest case, site editor Natallya Radzina received a threatening email message on July 15 that was prompted by a report about a pro-Russian neo-fascist group. The email that Radzina received on...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Belarusian authorities to renew work credentials for Andrzej Poczobut, a local correspondent for Poland's largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and to investigate recent harassment of him and his family in the western city of Hrodno. Poczobut's credentials were pulled off after he reported on the policies of President Aleksandr Lukashenko and the...
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the s decision by judge Tatsiana Miranyuk of a district court in the western city of Brest to order the immediate seizure and destruction of the seventh and eighth issues of the opposition cultural magazine Arche on the grounds that their content was “extremist”. “We are again confronted by an absurd logic,” RSF said. “The administrative and judicial...
The new media law in Belarus contains several provisions that further deteriorate the media situation in the country. In particular, the law provides for regulation of online media by a governmental decree and re-registration of all the media outlets; it simplifies the procedure of closing down a media outlet and decreases the level of security of journalists and editorial boards, according to
