Alert: Journalists under Pressure as Belsat TV Restructures
Several journalists have denounced pressure on their work in the context of the restructuring of Belsat, a Belarusian and Russian-language TV channel that operates from Poland.
The channel is a subsidiary of the Polish public service broadcaster TVP. The merger of Belsat into the Belarusian newsroom of the “TVP Center for foreign language programs” has led journalists to fear a loss of independence and production capacity.
In March 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the budget for Belsat would be reduced from PLN74 million (€17,390,370) in 2023 to PLN40 million (€9,400,000) and this reduction would be partly compensated by a new contribution of PLN14 million (€3,290,000) from the budget of TVP World. At the time, Belsat broadcast almost 21 hours of programmes per day in Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian, and managed 13 YouTube channels and websites and several social media profiles.
In August, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) and the Press Club Belarus asked Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a letter to preserve Belsat, expressing concern that the merger would make Belsat one of three language units broadcasting on a single channel, which could result in a loss of access to the only independent TV channel in Belarusian language and to news that is not available elsewhere. These demands were not heard.
On 15 November 2024, TVP World decided to replace Belsat’s acting director, Aliaksei Dzikavitsky, with Alina Koushyk, a member of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s shadow cabinet. Following an interview with Koushyk, published on 19 November, the head of the Belarusian newsroom, Igor Kuley, was dismissed on 2 December, and the journalist who had conducted the interview, Siarhei Padsasonny, was blamed and threatened in front of the newsroom.
On 5 December, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) said in a statement that “Belsat’s restructuring must not be used as a pretext for unjustified sanctions and intimidation against journalists”, calling on the Polish authorities and the new Belsat management “to refrain from taking reprisals against journalists who are only doing their job and to preserve Belsat’s independence and autonomy”.
