Belarusian bloggers: Breaking the media mould | Coronavirus pandemic

While governments across the world have been buying citizens to stay home in the fight from COVID-19, Belarus’s longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was telling Belarusians to get on with existence as regular. As a single of Europe’s previous leaders to recognise that the virus exists – enable by yourself kills – the strongman has overlooked phone calls for lockdown steps, suggesting vodka, sauna remedies or tractor rides alternatively.

But Belarusians know that an infection premiums preserve climbing, and that the loss of life toll carries on to climb. Not since they have listened to it from their mainstream media – which was introduced to heel extensive ago – but for the reason that they have located a new resource of details: a group of bloggers that are telling the COVID-19 tale the way it actually is.

“Due to censorship, Belarusians are particularly constrained when it comes to accessing precise info, particularly from point out institutions. In the course of this pandemic, they are providing studies that will not properly reflect the range of fatalities and bacterial infections. In this context, it is incredibly critical to have access to option resources of news, and which is why bloggers are so common,” Katerina Andreeva, a reporter for Belsat Television set, advised The Listening Write-up.

Stepan Svyatlou – much better regarded as NEXTA – is Belarus’s most renowned blogger. Movies and posts on his YouTube and Telegram channels often generate more than a million sights. The previous number of months, he has concentrated on Lukashenko’s mishandling of the COVID-19 disaster. But his attempts to keep these in energy to account extend much past this pandemic.

“I address crimes dedicated by officers and civil servants. I test to publish what just isn’t getting printed by the state newspapers, or aired by the point out broadcasters. We publish paperwork that are leaked to us by authorities insiders – details that discredits the authorities and lowers their scores,” claims Svyatlou.

The recognition of bloggers like NEXTA is earning Lukashenko increasingly anxious, not least mainly because their followers have commenced to mobilise on the streets. And with the presidential election just a few of months away, that is the type of dissent Lukashenko can do devoid of.

Andrei Bastunets, chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, describes that “the authorities have arrive to fully grasp that blogs like Stepan Svyatlou’s NEXTA, or Sergei Tikhanouski’s Country for Everyday living, do not just unfold info, but the bloggers by themselves are turning out to be the centre of attention, and they can essentially affect politics, not just talk about it.”

The Listening Post’s Johanna Hoes reports on Belarusian bloggers, and their efforts to convey about political change that is lengthy overdue.

Feature Contributors:

Stepan Svyatlou – Founder, NEXTA

Andrei Bastunets – Chair, Belarusian Association of Journalists

Katerina Andreeva – Reporter, Belsat Television

Resource: Al Jazeera News