international ALL IMAGES: BAJ On the O


ver the course of some 10 years, I worked with the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) to help


strengthen organisational and journalistic skills as part of an International Federation of Journalists project. Today, most of the people I worked with are either in jail or in exile. After years of persecution under President Lukashenko, the multi-award- winning BAJ was ‘liquidated’ under a supreme court order in 2021. The homes of BAJ leaders were raided, and its office broken into and sealed by the security forces. Then, in 2023, the Belarusian KGB declared BAJ an extremist organisation. The KGB make no secret of their presence. When opposition candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin was briefly released from jail in 2008 to attend his wife’s funeral, the church and streets outside were so full of agents that I found taking photos very risky. They operate from a massive yellow headquarters that fills a whole block in the centre of Minsk, complete with cells and interrogation suites. I heard many hair-raising tales from


BAJ members who get calls from agents keeping tabs on them. One young blogger was detained and interrogated merely for posting pictures sent by his girlfriend of ‘press freedom teddy bears’ that had landed in her garden. The authorities were riled because Swedish activist Tomas Mazetti had dropped them from a plane. My own brushes with the ubiquitous agents have been many and varied,


RUN


Mike Jempson remembers persecuted colleagues from Belarus in dire need of support


from the theft and recovery of my wallet, to what happened when I went on an unscheduled trip to towns and villages where independent journalism was being kept alive. They seemed to know where I was at all time. In one industrial backwater, they


called to say the editor of the local paper wanted to interview me. When we turned up at her empty offices late on a Saturday afternoon, she said a trainee reporter wanted to sit in on the interview. The gaff was blown with her first question: I was asked to “describe media regulation in your home country of Ireland”. As an Irish citizen, I travel on an Irish passport, but I was born and live in England. The only way she could have known about my Irish connection was through official sources. And the ‘trainee’ revealed his true colours by asking for my views on the removal of Russian statues from public parks in Latvia and the West’s recognition of Kosovo. I respectfully pointed out that these were political matters on which I would not comment, but I was happy to answer questions on journalism issues. He had none. His editor continued with a carefully prepared script she appeared to read from a Filofax. We left soon after, but not before I


had snapped a picture of the hapless pair. He turned out to be a local KGB agent. Whatever she wrote in a two-page spread was sufficient to get me banned from Belarus for a decade. The ban did not stop our training programme. We held sessions in neighbouring countries instead. At one


Clockwise: Maryna Zolatava and Ludmila Chekina of Tut.By at their trial; Denis Ivashin is led away to serve a nine-year sentence for investigating the recruitment of former members of the Ukrainian riot squad; Andrei Aliaksandrau and Iryna Ziobina were married in Minsk Jail in 2022


of them, several young BAJ members came out as gay, and I was proud to have been part of the creation of an LGBTQ+ journalists’ network across the region. So many of these brave people were taking risks with their freedom. The entire BAJ executive is now in exile, and 38 BAJ members are in jail serving sentences from two to 14 years. Andrei Aliaksandrau, part of a BAJ


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delegation to Britain, who had spent several years here working with Index on Censorship and Amnesty, is serving 14 years for ‘high treason’. He and his partner Iryna Ziobina were arrested in January 2021, charged with rioting and accused of paying protesters’ fines and detention fees. Ziobina got nine years. The couple married in Minsk jail in 2022. By declaring publications and broadcasting outlets ‘extremist formations’, the authorities are able to arrest and charge photographers, camera operators and other freelances just for supplying content. Editor-in-chief of ‘liquidated’ Tut.By


The ‘trainee’ reporter revealed his true colours by asking for my views on the removal of Russian statues from public parks


Maryna Zolatava and her CEO Ludmila Chekhina each got 12 years on charges ranging from tax evasion to associating with terrorists. Three staff members went on the run and are listed as fugitives by the Lukashenko regime. Amnesty international, Index on Censorship and the exiled Belarus Free Theatre are leading support for BAJ members in the UK. Funds are needed to keep spirits up and look after the families of those in jail.


Donations can be sent via https:// www.patreon.com/baj_media


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