Video transcript Andrei Klikunou

My name is Andrei Klikunou. I am a Council member and Board member of Belarusian Association of Journalists. I would like to join the Council of IFEX in order to stand up and to coordinate the efforts of all good-willing members of IFEX in defense of journalism and freedom of expression that is in particular violated in Belarus. Thirty-seven members of Belarusian Association of Journalists are in jail now. More than four hundred members of BAJ are in exile, separated from our families and friends, burned out and depressed. 

It has been just today that the BAJ logo, BAJ social media and Web-site were criminalized. For sharin a post from BAJ one may get to jail for the term of up to seven years. Isn’t it absurd?

I think that dictators learn one from another how to harass, how to suppress independent media and journalists, and civil society. And I think that IFEX is a great platform for starting and developing an ongoing dialogue for human rights defenders on how to fight dictators.