“The time will come, and the Freedom Train will depart”: Journalism Forum opens in Vilnius

On May 2, the forum “Stay­ing secure in unse­cure times: Strate­gies for jour­nal­ists and the media» opened in Vil­nius. The event began with a sol­i­dar­i­ty action in sup­port of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who are cur­rent­ly behind bars for doing their pro­fes­sion­al work.

The forum was opened by an action of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the impris­oned Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. Pho­to: BAJ

The forum was orga­nized by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Lithuan­ian Jour­nal­ist Union with sup­port from the Coun­cil of Europe.

Andrei Bas­tunets, Chair of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, empha­sized at the forum’s open­ing:

“It’s a somber and chal­leng­ing moment: we’re once again hon­or­ing our col­leagues who remain behind bars, and sad­ly, their num­bers con­tin­ue to grow. Some of our friends present today are also fac­ing crim­i­nal charges. Still, we’re grate­ful to come togeth­er on the eve of World Press Free­dom Day to reflect on the sit­u­a­tion and seek ways for­ward.”

BAJ chair Andrei Bas­tunets at the open­ing of the forum. Pho­to: BAJ

The forum is tak­ing place at the Lithuan­ian Rail­way Muse­um, locat­ed in the Vil­nius train sta­tion.

Dainius Radze­vičius, Chair of the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists, referred to the sym­bol­ism of the venue and expressed con­fi­dence that a time will come when Belaru­sian and Lithuan­ian jour­nal­ists will trav­el togeth­er by train to a free Belarus:

“What a great idea — to depart from here on a Free­dom Train from Vil­nius to Min­sk. And I’m con­vinced that we’ll be on that first train.”

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Euro­pean Coun­cil Shahin Abbasov and Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists chief Dainius Radze­vičius at the open­ing of the forum. Pho­to: BAJ

Two dis­cus­sions took place dur­ing the forum today. The first focused on the safe­ty of jour­nal­is­tic work, and the sec­ond on strength­en­ing con­nec­tions between jour­nal­ism com­mu­ni­ties.

The par­tic­i­pants were wel­comed by Shahin Abbasov, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Coun­cil of Europe:

“Press free­dom is per­haps more rel­e­vant for Belaru­sian jour­nal­ism than for any oth­er in Europe. Many orga­ni­za­tions have been labeled ‘extrem­ist.’ A large num­ber of out­lets are forced to work from abroad — espe­cial­ly from Lithua­nia. The sit­u­a­tion has also been affect­ed by the U.S. administration’s deci­sion to freeze USAID fund­ing, but we con­tin­ue our work nonethe­less. And we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port.”

Action of sol­i­dar­i­ty with impris­oned Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists at the open­ing of the forum. Pho­to: BAJ