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Free Media Award presented in Oslo to recently released Andrej Alaksandraŭ
September 29, Pozirk. Media manager Andrej Alaksandraŭ, who was released and deported from Belarus earlier this month after many years in prison, was honored with this year’s Free Media Award at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on September 29.
Speaking at the event, Alaksandraŭ, who served as deputy director general of the private news agency BelaPAN between 2015 and 2018, expressed determination to continue his journalistic work and said that he dedicated his award to “all courageous colleagues who are not giving up despite the difficult conditions.”
Alaksandraŭ described news of the award, which had reached him shortly before his release, as a “great emotional boost.” He said that he had continued to identify himself with journalists even in prison, because a journalist is a person who “continues to tell people the truth about the situation and to collect even small fragments of available information to piece together a fact-based picture of reality, which authoritarian regimes hate so much.”
Alaksandraŭ pointed out that 15 media workers remain behind bars in Belarus and thanked his BelaPAN colleagues, including Iryna Leŭšyna and Dźmitryj Navažyłaŭ, as well as his wife Iryna Złobina, who had also served years in prison.
Andrej Alaksandraŭ “has been chosen to receive a Free Media Award for his courage and commitment to freedom of the press and freedom of expression under an increasingly repressive regime,” the organizers said while announcing the winners on September 4. “Through his work at the independent Belarusian news agency BelaPAN and the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), he has helped strengthen professional standards of journalism, support independent media and build international networks of journalists and human rights defenders.”
Norway’s Fritt Ord Foundation and Germany’s Zeit Stiftung Bucerius named Alaksandraŭ a winner of the Free Media Awards along with Ukrainian investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkach, the Georgian investigative media outlet iFact, the Armenian online media outlet Factor TV and the exiled Russian online media outlet Verstka.
The prestigious Free Media Awards, which honors independent, pro-democracy journalism in Eastern Europe and comes with a money prize of €15,000, was bestowed upon Belarus’ web portal tut.by, the BAJ and four Belarusian female journalists in 2021 amid a crackdown on non-state media in Belarus.
Andrej Alaksandraŭ and his then girlfriend Iryna Złobina were arrested on January 12, 2021.
In October 2022, judge Viačasłaŭ Tulejka of the Minsk Regional Court sentenced Alaksandraŭ to 14 years in prison and Złobina to nine years, on charges widely seen as politically motivated, including high treason, tax evasion and organizing actions grossly disturbing public order. Rights groups consider both political prisoners. They married in custody in September 2022.
Alaksandraŭ served his term in Penal Colony No. 1 in Navapołack, Viciebsk region, employed in the prison’s woodworking shop.
The now-defunct BelaPAN was branded an “extremist group” in Belarus in early November 2021. Some of the agency’s journalists currently work with Pozirk.
Following the 2020 peaceful protests against election fraud, Belarusian authorities have equated criticism, solidarity, advocacy, the free media and free expression with extremism and terrorism.
Media manager Alaksandraŭ happy to find Belarusian journalism alive after prison
September 18, Pozirk. Media manager Andrej Alaksandraŭ, freed two days ago in Minsk's deal with Washington, thanked Belarusian journalists for staying in the profession and keeping Belarusian journalism alive. The journalist made the statement at a conference on Belarusian media …
