A/HRC/38/51 37. In 2017, the authorities resumed the practice of prosecuting journalists for cooperating with foreign media outlets without accreditation. As a result, 69 fines were imposed on freelance journalists in 2017, more than the number imposed in the three previous years, and amounting to more than €25,000.10 38. The Special Rapporteur continued to receive information about the situation of journalists, especially those working for the media outlet Belsat, which is based in Poland but broadcasts in Belarusian in the territory of Belarus. Belsat journalists are a regular target of the authorities. There was hardly a month during the reporting period when a Belsat journalist was not arrested or fined and his or her material seized. On 10 July 2017, an independent journalist working for Belsat was declared guilty of forging illicit media content and fined. In August 2017, another five Belsat journalists were fined,11 in addition to one in September 2017, four in December 2017 and another two in February 2018. Belsat cameraman, Andrei Kozel, who was covering the February 2018 local elections, was brutally arrested and fined for allegedly having violated the secrecy of the vote counting process. 39. The aftermath of the mass arrests and persecution of journalists in 2017 continued in 2018. Yuri Pavlovets, Dimitri Alimkin and Sergei Shiptenko, three Belarusian freelance journalists working for a number of Russian media outlets, who had been accused of collaborating with foreign media without accreditation and charged with the criminal offence of publishing content labelled as “extremist”, were convicted in February 2018, after having spent a year in custody. All the accused were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, suspended for three years. 40. On a positive note, in 2017, distribution of eight independent newspapers (Borisovskiye Novosti, Otdushina, Volnae Hlybokae, Hazeta Slonimskaya, Intex-press, Novy Chas, SNplus and ARCHE.Pachatak) through the State retail network resumed. Those publications had been excluded from the Sojuzpechat network (the national retail network for print media) and the Belpochta (national postal service) subscription service for 11 years. 41. Local private newspaper Barysauskija Naviny is a regular target of the authorities. 12 Its chief editor was tried on 1 December 2017 for publishing an article criticizing national policies. The trial followed a warning issued by the Ministry of Information on 20 November. After a second warning, the outlet could be closed. 42. The authorities continue to treat independent artists as political opponents and to exercise tight control over artistic expression, thus violating cultural rights. For instance, pop music singer Ales Dzianisau was banned from playing at a concert in July 2017 by the department of ideology, culture and youth affairs of the Executive Committee of Minsk, on the basis that he lacked talent.13 Similarly, police raided a rock concert on 14 October 2017, reportedly in a brutal manner, and many participants were detained for a brief period. 43. Famous Russian philosopher Piotr Riabov, who was giving a private lecture indoors on 9 October 2017 in Hrodna, was arrested by the police, together with 20 other persons attending the event. He was sentenced to deportation, subsequently deported to the Russian Federation and banned from re-entering Belarus for 10 years.14 44. At the same time, the State-run media continued to be used by the authorities to campaign against human rights defenders and election observers. Ten days before the local elections of 18 February, two State-owned television channels broadcast the news that the campaign “Right to choose 2018”, run by independent observers, was biased. Furthermore, 12 days before the local elections, the President dismissed the heads of three State-owned 10 11 12 13 14 See https://baj.by/en/analytics/fines-journalists-violating-article-229-administrative-code-chartupdated. See http://spring96.org/en/news/87741. See https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2010/belarus. See https://charter97.org/en/news/2017/7/25/257547/. See https://belarusdigest.com/story/new-repressions-in-belarus-the-art-of-staying-below-westernradars/. 7