Belarus: portraits of arbitrarily detained media professionals

 Today, Belarus is one of the largest pris­ons in the world for inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists, with 39 cur­rent­ly behind bars.

Since the sham re-elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko on 9 August 2020, the noose con­strain­ing the country’s inde­pen­dent media has con­tin­ued to tight­en. His leg­isla­tive arse­nal, inspired by Vladimir Putin’s Rus­sia, has made work­ing con­di­tions impos­si­ble for jour­nal­ists, who are forced into exile for fear of their free­dom. Lukashenko’s regime is method­i­cal­ly drain­ing the coun­try of voic­es that crit­i­cise the state and those who have cho­sen to stay and report despite the risks pay an extreme­ly high price.

Because they are the last defend­ers of access to reli­able, inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion in Belarus, these pro­fes­sion­als are per­se­cut­ed by the jus­tice sys­tem — act­ing under the con­trol of the gov­ern­ment — of “high trea­son”, “incit­ing hatred”, and dif­fer­ent accu­sa­tions of “extrem­ism.” The regime leaves them only two options: prison or exile. In a new online por­trait gallery of the detained Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists, which is updat­ed in real-time, Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF) gives vis­i­bil­i­ty to the country’s news heroes who are impris­oned sim­ply for doing their job.

All por­traits can be viewed here