Belarus’s is among eight countries with worst media freedom index, Freedom House says

The report issued on May 1 shows that the vast majority of people in Eurasia live in not free media environments. Global press freedom is in decline, too, falling to its lowest level in over a decade.

On May 1, 2014 Freedom House released its annual report, "Freedom of the Press 2014: Media Freedom Hits Decade Low," on May 1, assessing the situation in 197 countries and territories during 2013.

According to the report, the overall tendency shows declines in media freedom on a global level, driven by governments’ efforts to control the message and punish the messenger. In every region of the world last year, we found both governments and private actors attacking reporters, blocking their physical access to newsworthy events, censoring content, and ordering politically motivated firings of journalists.

In Eurasia, despite positive developments occurred in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, the overwhelming majority of people in the region (97 percent) lived in Not Free media environments. Thus, conditions in Russia remained grim, as the RIA Novosti news agency was closed and the government enacted additional legal restrictions on online speech, the report says.

Ukraine was downgraded to Not Free for 2013 due primarily to attacks on journalists covering the EuroMaidan protests, and further erosion took place in Azerbaijan.

The world’s eight worst-rated countries remain Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Belarus’s media environment remained extremely restrictive in 2013. Even in the absence of major political events during the year, the government of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka continued to aggressively suppress independent voices. The authorities sustained their crackdown on opposition activists, protesters, and journalists while attempting to stave off economic deterioration, the influence of Ukraine’s EuroMaidan protests, pressure to move toward European integration, political meddling by the Kremlin, and the growing influence of social media among younger Belarusians.

However, in an apparent effort to improve relations with its European neighbors, the government made a number of concessions during the year, most notably the release of several prominent journalists and political prisoners.

Long ignored by the government, bloggers and online journalists operated in relative freedom in Belarus until recently, the analysts write. However, internet penetration has increased, reaching 47 percent of the population in 2012, and the government has responded by restricting and monitoring use of the medium. Thus, over the course of the year, the police detained at least 45 journalists and bloggers while they were attempting to cover protests or other political events.

The government maintains a virtual monopoly on domestic broadcast media, which consistently glorify Lukashenka and the benefits of a “stronger state” while vilifying the opposition, the research says. Moreover, tax exemptions for state media give them a considerable advantage over private outlets. In the print sector, state-owned publications dominate.

You can read the whole report on Belarus here.

The overall report can be found here.

Reference

Freedom House is a U.S.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. The mission of the organization is to support non-violent civic initiatives in societies where freedom is denied or under threat and promote the right of all people to be free.

Freedom House acts as a catalyst for freedom through a combination of analysis, advocacy, and action.  The research and analysis performed by the analysts of the organization frames the policy debate in the United States and abroad on the progress and decline of freedom.