Belarus media strike: 'if we can't do honest journalism, we won't work'

On Monday morning, Belarusians watching the news on state television were greeted with an extraordinary sight: an empty studio. It was the latest development in the rapid unravelling of president Alexander Lukashenko’s hold on power in Belarus during the past week, and potentially one of the most significant.

Belarus One, the national channel, has been churning out government propaganda throughout Lukashenko’s quarter-century rule, and at the beginning of last week was painting the protesters as dangerous provocateurs paid from abroad to disrupt the glorious stability brought by Lukashenko.

But Belarus has changed so quickly in the past week that many at the channel feel they can no longer work for the propaganda machine. On Monday, about 300 of the station’s 2,000 employees went on strike, saying they would not return to work unless the government implemented five demands, including new elections and the removal of television censorship.

“People feel that if we can’t do honest journalism, then we won’t work,” said the documentary maker Kseniya Lutskina, one of those who signed. She was standing outside the headquarters on Monday afternoon fielding calls from colleagues and trying to persuade them to sign up.

Lutskina said some of those striking had said they would come to the office but not work, and said that all but the most ideological were considering joining, but many were scared. “The problem for a lot of people is that then there’s no other television to work at in the country – it’s all state-controlled,” she said. Management has threatened to fire those who go on strike.

Some employees walked out even before the recent elections, feeling suffocated by the atmosphere as Lukashenko jailed his political opponents and looked set to rig the election. Alexander Luchonok, who worked for 18 months as a special correspondent on the twice-weekly current affairs programme Under the President’s Control, handed in his resignation a week before the election.

Luchonok said most correspondents at the station simply wanted to pursue a good career, but added that there were some ideologues who were genuine Lukashenko supporters. “Even if they don’t believe everything in the reports, they think it’s important to keep Lukashenko in office,” he said in a recent interview.

Sensitive political topics were ordered directly from the presidential administration, he said, but “of course, mainly it’s about self-censorship; you know what not to say”.

Luchonok was also deeply disturbed by the station’s coverage of the coronavirus crisis, which Lukashenko dismissed as a “psychosis” that should not stop people from working. “I watched someone who went through a relative dying of coronavirus and saw this same person ordering people to produce a report on how the virus situation in the country was under control,” he said.

For years, the television news has reported on the country as if it is still part of the Soviet Union in 1980: nightly spots on tractor production and grain harvests, always featuring the great leader keeping an eye on things and reprimanding wayward officials.

Even as the country was plunged into chaos last week, there were attempts to portray business as usual. Last Tuesday, as riot police were chasing protesters through Minsk for a third consecutive night and thousands were being subjected to appalling conditions and violent treatment inside prisons, the evening news on Belarus One opened with news of Lukashenko chairing a cabinet meeting about the price of rapeseed oil.

“The peasants are working better than ever before, and we have meat, salt and butter,” he said, ahead of a package featuring footage of various factory production lines.

There was also time for sinister coverage of the protests. Video was carefully edited to make it look as if the majority of the violence had come from the protesters’ side, and there were gruesome interviews with bloodied protesters, lying face down on the ground, hands tied behind their back, who croaked in pain that they would never protest again. Anchors repeatedly emphasised that the protests had been ordered from abroad with the goal of destabilising the country.

Many older people get their news from television, and for this reason, it has become one of the protesters’ targets. On Saturday, and again on Monday, crowds gathered outside the headquarters.

“Tell the truth to our grandparents,” read a huge banner placed outside the entrance. Riot police inside the building formed a defence line to prevent the protesters from entering.

At the vast protest rally on Sunday, the opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova said she was appealing to journalists on state television, as well as security forces and diplomats, to join the protests. “This is your last chance. Fight your fear like all of us did. We were all scared, but we fought our fear. Join us and we will support you,” she said.

(Source: The Guardian)