Belarus Journalists Under Lukashenko's Rule Face Arrest, Torture, Jail

Undeterred by sanctions from the European Union and United States, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, called Europe's Last Dictator, has instead further consolidated power by trying to eliminate the press.

A joint report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) said he targeted journalists for covering protests against what critics said was his rigged re-election in August, 2020 voting.

Months of public gatherings against him failed, and buoyed by withstanding them, Lukashenko stepped up persecution of journalists and activists, including censorship, fines, threats detention and torture, the report said.

He became emboldened further after ordering fighter jets on May 23 to force a RyanAir flight from Athens to Lithuania to land under the ruse of a bomb threat so that dissident journalist Roman Protasevich could be arrested.

Protasevich had been in Greece at a state conference but is now under house arrest and made what appeared to be a forced statement praising Lukashenko at the same time the European Union said flights in EU countries had to bypass Belarus.

Protasevich was until November 2020 editor of the opposition Nexta channel on the Telegram messaging app, a channel founded by fellow dissident Stepan Putilo, run from outside Belarus and used to mobilize protests in Belarus.

Lithuania's Public Prosecutor, on the basis of universal jurisdiction, is investigating the downing of the flight for “hijacking of plane with terrorist intent,” said RSF, which lodged the complaint that led to the probe.

Lukashenko was elected Belarus' first President in 1994 and easily keeps winning re-election, holding on to power for 27 years with the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is trying to dismantle independent media.

The EU, dependent on Russia for 40 percent of its gas imports, has alternated between being tough and lenient on Lukashenko who has withstood sanctions and protests and stepped up his crackdown on journalists and the media.

The RSF-OMCT report said that police in Belarus from July 8-9 carried out almost 70 raids on media outlets and journalists’ homes, arresting at least 15, including four prosecuted on terrorism charges.

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The groups added that under Lukashenko the state has a “system of repression that has been imposed with the aim of silencing journalists,” and that 29 are in prison for doing their jobs.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) which is RSF’s partner organization, said in the year since the rigged election there have been almost 500 arrests and detentions of journalists. Belsat TV journalists Daria Chultsova and Katsiaryna Andreyeva were sentenced to two years in prison for filming demonstrations Lukashenko wanted to keep hidden.

Journalists are held on what the report said were spurious charges aimed at getting them, without investigation or basic safeguards for due process in a country where Lukashenko is the law.

The journalists union, winner of the 2004 Sakharov Prize, said it learned on social media that the Ministry of Justice wants to liquidate it in a move to prevent any critical reporting of Lukashenko. A court also dissolved freedom of expression organization PEN Belarus.

Nearly 70 journalists were victims of violence, including Hrodna.life reporter Ruslan Kulevich, who was held for two days although baton blows fractured both of his hands at the time of his arrest, the report said.

“A free and independent press, the pillar of democracy, is Alexander Lukashenko’s main enemy in his desire to submit the Belarusian people to his authority,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Zmitser Mitskevich, a Belarusian journalist now in Poland, told The Voice of America that, “The media are considered the biggest threat by Lukashenko. He considers them to be personal enemies for him. So, that's why he wants to eliminate all of them out of the country.”

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order allowing for more sanctions on Belarus, calling the mass jailing of civil society and journalists are “an affront to global norms” and “an illegitimate effort to hold on to power at any price.”