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Hijack, arrest, torture: Belarusian journalists under attack
The grounding of a Ryanair flight on a fake bomb threat is just the latest escalation of an independent media clampdown in Belarus
25 May 2021
BY VOLHA SIAKHOVICH
Masked law enforcement officers detain a journalist during a protest by opposition supporters at Komarovsky Market in Minsk. Credit: Natalia Fedosenko/TASS/Alamy Live News
The diversion of a Ryanair plane to Minsk over the weekend on the orders of Belaruisan president Alexander Lukashenko and the subsequent detention of independent journalist Roman Protasevich is the latest incident in a clampdown on independent media in the country.
May 20, 2021 Share
The European Union has slammed Belarus for its closure of the country’s biggest independent online news publication, Tut.by, as one of its reporters left prison after serving six months for her reporting on the death of a protester killed during a crackdown on demonstrations against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.
In a statement on May 19, an EU spokesman called the blocking a day earlier of the popular news site an “act of continued repression and intimidation” against independent media.
Belarusian authorities also raided Tut.by’s offices in Minsk and other regions, and the homes of its journalists and employees, breaking the door leading to the apartment of Maryna Zolatava, the site’s editor in chief. The Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights group said on May 19 that 12 women and two men who worked for the publication had been detained.
Chronicling The Bloody Belarus Crackdown Is An Imperative For This Online News Editor, Despite Pressure
May 02, 2021 14:36 GMT
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Anger spilled onto the streets of Minsk and across Belarus on August 9, 2020, shortly after polls closed and a state-run exit survey pointed to a big victory for Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Protesters marched through the streets of the capital, many
No election in Belarus under Lukashenka, in power since 1994, had been deemed free or fair by the West, and this one was no different, although the strongman was suddenly more vulnerable than he had been going into past votes. He was under fire for refusing to institute lockdown measures to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which he dismissed as mass hysteria.