19 March 2024, Tuesday, 10:47
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Independent Journalists Make It To UN

Independent Journalists Make It To UN
ANDREI TOLCHYN, KANSTANTSIN ZHUKOUSKI
PHOTO: BAJ

The decisions taken in Geneva remain a matter of the future, that requires working for it today.

Representative of the Homel branch of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) freelancer Kanstantsin Zhukouski together with cameraman Andrei Tolchyn filed individual complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee, gomelspring.org reports.

At the international level, freelancers declared systematic persecution during 2017 for their work for the satellite television channel Belsat (violation of the right to receive and disseminate information).

Last year, freelancer Zhukouski was heavily fined 11 times for the total amount of about Bn 9 K by the courts in the Homel region, while his colleague Andrei Tolchyn was tried 5 times and fined for the amount of about Bn 3 K for their cooperation with the Polish TV channel Belsat, which showed their reports dedicated to various local problems.

“Last year, they handcuffed me to a tree, poisoned with unidentified chemicals at the swine farm, waited for me near my house to prevent me from going to work. In fact, in 2017 I paid about 4 thousands euros of fines for my professional activity, which approximately equals to the average annual salary in the country on the whole,” — Kanstantsin Zhukouski summarized the results of the year.

The BAJ lawyer Leanid Sudalenka, who is officially authorized by the power of attorney of the association to represent the interests of the freelancers in court, states that their cases revealed a number of contradictions between the national legislation and the country's international obligations.

“The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees everyone the freedom to collect and disseminate information, while our national media law excessively restricts the very essence of this right. Everyone has the right to freely choose a defender in court, our legislator limited this right exclusively to the services of a lawyer. I am sure that, in the framework of these cases, the listed violations of the freelancers’ rights will be established,” — the lawyer said.

Although the Belarusian authorities have not yet reacted to the decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee, the freelancers believe that the issue of the implementation of the decisions taken in Geneva is a matter of the future, that requires working for it today.

“In addition to establishing direct violations of our rights, in our complaints we also raised the issue of the obligation of the Belarusian government to change the national legislation in such a way that the practice of its application would not subsequently lead to violations described by us," — Andrei Tolchyn said.

Important to note, at present moment two individual complaints of freelance journalist Zhukouski about the prosecution in the form of heavy administrative fines for his work for the TV-channel Belsat in 2015-2016 are now under consideration in the UN Committee on Human Rights.

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