About The Poor Blogger...

It is very important to show the real scale of repressions in Belarus.

Recently, the International Federation of Journalists published information about journalists behind bars. Belarus is on the 5th place in this list with 33 journalists. It gives way to Iran (34), Turkey (51), Myanmar (64), China and Hong Kong (84 each).

In fact, Belarus most likely made it to the shameful top three.

In Belarus, for some reason, bloggers are not considered journalists, although they functionally meet the definition of “mass media”, especially those who cover social and political topics.

In other countries from this list, it is considered that a blogger just belongs to the journalistic profession.

For example, the Chinese blogger Lu Changping, or Eskinder Nega from Ethiopia, who was imprisoned more than 10 times, the international PEN award-winning blogger from Saudi Arabia Raif Badawi, Iranian Seyyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, etc.

Their release is demanded as journalists doing their duty.

This profession in the world includes even civilian journalists, for example, the well-known Zhang Zhan, who reported on the coronavirus in Wuhan, for which she was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

In our country, for some reason, bloggers are not seen as journalists, although some, such as Ihar Losik, are included in the BAJ list of repressed journalists. Eduard Palchys, however, is not on the list, for some reason.

In my opinion, it is very important to talk about bloggers, whom the Lukashenka regime threw behind bars, as much as about journalists. It is in peaceful life that one can argue about how appropriate it is to classify bloggers as journalists, but in the war that Lukashenka is waging against us, it is necessary to remember all prisoners of war, to seek their release by all means.

Journalistic solidarity in the world is traditionally strong, and often helps free prisoners of conscience. The names of journalists behind bars usually become as famous in the world as the names of opposition politicians. There are strong international journalistic organizations that draw world attention to repressed journalists and help their families.

We, unfortunately, do not know the names of the majority of political prisoners, while they should all sound on all information channels every day. Inclusion of bloggers in the list of journalists behind bars will help at least to memorize and say their names.

By the way, Siarhei Tsikhanouskaya is also a blogger. Many people know Brest bloggers Siarhei Piatrukhin and Aliaksandr Kabanau, they have heard about Gray Cat and MozgOn. But they are unlikely to remember Dzmitry Tsimafeyeu from Baranavichy, Vadzim Yarmashuk from Hrodna, Dzianis Barsukou from Rechytsa, Ruslan Linnik and many others.

That is why Belarus, in my opinion, is placed higher on this shameful list.

It is very important to show the real scale of repressions in Belarus: there are thousands of political prisoners and dozens of journalists among them.

It would be nice if the BAJ revised the lists of journalists behind bars and included bloggers in them. This is easy to do, and the benefits can be great.

Andrei Sannikov, Facebook