“Help yourself — and thousands around you will be saved”: Kayak solidarity rally for jailed Belarusian journalists held near Vilnius

While the sun final­ly broke through weeks of rain over Vil­nius on June 28, a group of Belaru­sians gath­ered on Lithuania’s Merkys Riv­er for an unusu­al but mean­ing­ful event — a sol­i­dar­i­ty kayak ral­ly to sup­port impris­oned jour­nal­ists and polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Belarus.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty kayak trip. June 28, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

The event, orga­nized by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), marked part of the Medi­aWave cam­paign, a series of ini­tia­tives lead­ing up to BAJ’s 30th anniver­sary this fall. With 38 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists cur­rent­ly behind bars and over 300 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers recent­ly released, par­tic­i­pants empha­sized that every action — no mat­ter how sym­bol­ic — con­tributes to keep­ing atten­tion on those unjust­ly impris­oned.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, BAJ had already host­ed sev­er­al sol­i­dar­i­ty quizzes and a bike ride through Vil­nius. The next stop in this series of events is the themed Medi­a­Camp “Off­screen,” which will take place on July 19–20 at a cozy coun­try­side estate near Kau­nas.

“We are wit­ness­ing a wave of releas­es: over 300 peo­ple have walked free from Belaru­sian pris­ons. Every act of sup­port mat­ters — for polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, for jour­nal­ists — it all adds up to pres­sure for change,” said lawyer Aleh Matske­vich, echo­ing the sen­ti­ment shared by all who took part in the riv­er ral­ly.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty kayak trip. June 28, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

“We’re try­ing to draw atten­tion to the 38 jour­nal­ists who are impris­oned”
After weeks of rain in Vil­nius, June 28 final­ly brought a break: it turned out to be a sun­ny, albeit windy day. It was on this Sat­ur­day that the lat­est “Medi­aWave” event — a kayak trip on Lithuania’s Merkys riv­er — took place.

BAJ has faced crit­i­cism from fel­low media work­ers who con­sid­er such sol­i­dar­i­ty actions point­less, claim­ing they “don’t bring jour­nal­ists’ release any clos­er.” The debates over the forms and meth­ods of sup­port­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were addressed by BAJ’s Deputy Chair and Head of the Legal Cen­ter, Aleh Ahe­jeu.

“Our actions aim to broad­en the cir­cle of peo­ple who know about Belaru­sian polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. We try to con­vince them that their release is urgent­ly need­ed. This is achieved both offline and online. When we orga­nize an offline event, we count on peo­ple see­ing it live. Plus, these events are record­ed and spread online after­wards.

That’s exact­ly our goal. And the fact that there’s now a pub­lic dis­cus­sion about ways to free polit­i­cal pris­on­ers means that both the bike ride and the kayak trip have ful­filled their pur­pose. We’ve orga­nized and will con­tin­ue to orga­nize sol­i­dar­i­ty actions.”

“As for the crit­i­cal voic­es say­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions don’t help… Of course, polit­i­cal pris­on­ers are essen­tial­ly hostages of Lukashen­ka. To free them, pres­sure needs to be applied to the regime — it won’t release any­one vol­un­tar­i­ly,” Ahe­jeu said. “That means pres­sure is need­ed from all sides: through pub­lic opin­ion, through for­eign politi­cians, through unrest and ten­sion even inside Lukashenka’s sys­tem. Every­one wants to look good. And when the whole world sees the Belaru­sian regime as a crim­i­nal hold­ing hostages, that image push­es the regime itself toward releas­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.”

Head of BAJ’s Legal Cen­ter Aleh Ahe­jeu with par­tic­i­pants of the kayak trip. Pho­to: BAJ

Jour­nal­ist Iry­na Novik explained her moti­va­tion to take part:

“Events like this allow us not only to sur­vive, but to feel like we’re liv­ing a nor­mal life, to get inspired, to find new moti­va­tion to live and do some­thing. Because if you only grieve, cry, and dwell on the bad, and do noth­ing, you’ll have no strength left — not to help polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, not even to pull your­self out of deep depres­sion.

There’s no need to rein­vent the wheel. We should remem­ber the old truth: help your­self — and thou­sands around you will be saved. I believe that even if what we do may seem like enter­tain­ment to some, but it gives us strength — that means we’re also gain­ing the poten­tial to help polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. And not only them.”

“Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are very impor­tant: they make us vis­i­ble. If we can sup­port pris­on­ers this way — why not?” believes Hrodna.life staff mem­ber Vol­ha Novik.

Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist Vlad Sydorenko also joined the sol­i­dar­i­ty action. Pho­to: BAJ

Human rights defend­er Leanid Sudalen­ka remind­ed that he has been part of BAJ for 25 years:

“For me, BAJ is a val­ues-dri­ven orga­ni­za­tion that pri­mar­i­ly defends free­dom of speech in Belarus. In Sep­tem­ber, BAJ will cel­e­brate its 30th anniver­sary. And all these decades, as a region­al lawyer, I’ve been help­ing defend free­dom of speech.

Through the kayak trip, we’re also try­ing to draw atten­tion to our 38 jour­nal­ist col­leagues who are behind bars. In my opin­ion, any activ­i­ty that high­lights the issue of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers — be it a bike ride, a kayak trip, or any­thing else — is valu­able.”

Leanid Sudalen­ka on the Merkys riv­er. Pho­to: BAJ

“And to those crit­ics lying on their couch­es say­ing we shouldn’t do any­thing — greet­ings, first of all, and sec­ond — join us, it’s not too late,” adds Leanid.

A reminder of the repres­sion against free speech
Dur­ing the trip, par­tic­i­pants orga­nized an addi­tion­al sym­bol­ic action: they set paper boats afloat on the riv­er with the names of impris­oned media work­ers.

Video screen­shot

This was a peace­ful, sym­bol­ic act of sol­i­dar­i­ty and a reminder of the repres­sion against free speech in Belarus. Each paper boat served as a reminder that behind bars are real peo­ple — col­leagues, friends, pro­fes­sion­als.

Video screen­shot

The paper boats with names are a way to make sure we don’t for­get those unjust­ly impris­oned. By set­ting them afloat, par­tic­i­pants want­ed to send a mes­sage: free­dom is pos­si­ble, we believe in the release of those behind bars.

Video screen­shot

Such actions often take place out­side Belarus — in Vil­nius, War­saw, Berlin, and oth­er cities. By orga­niz­ing them, BAJ empha­sizes: the fate of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists is not a domes­tic issue — it’s a mat­ter of uni­ver­sal human rights.

Of course, paper boats won’t reach Belarus, they won’t storm Belaru­sian pris­ons or car­ry away the cap­tive jour­nal­ists. But what mat­ters is that we remem­ber our impris­oned col­leagues — because any one of us could be in their place.