The roundtable entitled Independent Belarusian Media and War in Ukraine dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the independent Belarusian-language TV channel Belsat, created with the support of Poland, was held today at the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
Sergiy Tomilenko, the President of the NUJU, greeted the participants.
“Lukashenko’s regime decisively stopped the belarusification of Belarus. What the Russian bayonet did not finish, the Russian teacher and the Russian priest will do. State policy is currently run from the Kremlin. Therefore, we are very grateful for the support from Poland. Thanks to it, we have become a full-fledged channel in 15 years,” said Oleksii Dikavytskyi, a deputy director of the Belsat TV.
Currently, 10 Belsat journalists are behind bars. The rest escaped to Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania in 2020.
As the deputy head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Borys Garetsky, added, journalists in Belarus receive 14-15 years in prison just for fulfilling their professional duties. Therefore, independent editorial offices work outside Belarus.
Representative of Belsat in Ukraine / coordinator of the Journalist Solidarity Centers of the NUJU, Ilya Suzdalev, thanked the Belarusian Association of Journalists for the New Year’s gift of power banks and charging stations. “Thank you for the important support in such difficult times for our energy industry!” emphasized the journalist.
Ukrainian military journalist Mykhailo Sharkov spoke about the importance of foreign support for journalist activity in Ukraine. He noted that, according to verified information, the occupiers are being paid a lot of money to capture journalists. The occupiers are not satisfied with the fact that Ukrainian and foreign media outlets provide objective information about events in Ukraine.
Mykhailo Sharkov presented a state flag with the signatures of and wishes from Ukrainian fighters who are currently holding the Lyman-Bakhmut military direction to the NUJU as a gift. “Journalists are important!” the fighters wrote down the slogan of the NUJU on the flag.
Yevheniya Virlych, the editor-in-chief of the Kavun.city online publication, emphasized that the Russian occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine is similar to the Kremlin’s and Lukashenko’s occupation of the whole of Belarus. In particular, such a repressive regime, attempts to russify our peoples, blocking the flow of objective information to people and persecuting journalists.
Director of Mariupol television / a forced migrant, Mykola Osychenko, said that the information situation in the occupied territories is such that people there do not know what is happening in the rest of Ukraine, and people in free Ukraine do not know what is going on in the occupation.
“Before February 24, the Mariupol audience had expected mainly Russian-language TV programs. But after the start of the war, the city’s residents, even factory workers, began to consciously switch to the Ukrainian language. There is no support for the occupiers from the Mariupol people, and probably there are no people anywhere who hate the occupiers as much as the Mariupol people do,” Mykola Osychenko said.
Summarizing the round table meeting, Sergiy Tomilenko, the President of the NUJU, emphasized that one of the main activities of the Union is the support of Belarusian journalists in the territory of Ukraine.
“Ukraine pursues a policy of boycotting the official Belarusian regime. Accordingly, certain decisions are made that affect Belarusian citizens in general. That is why Ukraine communicates with official Ukrainian structures, contributing to the unblocking of bank accounts of independent Belarusian journalists. We also provide journalists working on the front line with protective equipment, conduct various trainings, take care of psychological support for media workers, financially help colleagues who are in dire need of it, etc. All this is of great importance, because journalists are important!” said Sergiy Tomilenko.
NUJU information service
