auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.) —Tacitus, Agricola
Despite having a democratic constitution, Belarus has never been a democratic country, before or after the 2020 presidential elections. This has not stopped the authorities stating otherwise.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka came to power amid post-Soviet nostalgia and maintained the rhetoric of a ‘welfare state’, insisting that prosperity is more important than respect for civil rights. Continuity with the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic became a part of the official discourse. After coming to power in 1994, he initiated the restoration of Soviet symbols as the official symbols of the Republic of Belarus—they replaced the historic white-red-white flag and the ‘Pahonya’ coat of arms, which have been state symbols since 1991.[1] Soviet-style administrative and ideological structures, including the KGB, continue to function in the country.
A period of press freedom began following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, but it ended in late 1994 when Lukashenka, who had just come to power, began to interfere in the work of the media. At that time, a lot of newspapers printed blank spaces instead of the report of MP Siarhei Antonchyk on corruption in the circles of the new president. The presidential administration banned the report’s publication in state-owned media, which had previously enjoyed fairly major editorial freedom.[2] Since then, the government has aimed at limiting press freedom, constantly tightening legal restrictions on the activities of journalists and the media. The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) appeared in 1995 to address precisely these government actions, since the Soviet-tradition Belarusian Union of Journalists was unable to defend independent media representatives.
Belarus is sometimes called a ‘reservation of socialism’, and there is still evidence of this in its media. Denationalisation and privatisation of the media have not taken place in the country. The state system of Soviet-style propaganda has been preserved, which is designed to spread ‘state ideology’. The Ministry of Information can block websites and shut down media outlets to ensure that few alternatives to the state propaganda can be heard.[3] The media sphere in Belarus can be divided into two sectors: state-run and independent. Media outlets in the independent camp are either privately owned or funded from abroad.