Belarus

Belarus ranked 165th of 180 countries in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 27.72. It improved one position and 1.99 points from 166th and 25.73 in 2025. The numerical improvement should not be read as evidence of structural liberalisation: Reporters Without Borders continues to describe massive repression of independent media.

The authorities have changed laws to give a legal veneer to attacks on press freedom, and the justice system, under complete government control, has begun equating independent journalism with extremism, punishable by up to seven years in prison. Most independent outlets and the Belarusian Association of Journalists have been officially declared extremist, and the vast majority of Belarusian independent media now operate from outside the country or have ceased publishing. According to BAJ, between 500 and 600 journalists have been forced into exile, and most of those who remain work clandestinely.

The number of media workers in detention fell during the review period without any identified structural liberalisation.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists recorded 37 media workers imprisoned in August 2025, 28 as of February 2026 and 21 in August 2026, six years after the disputed presidential election of 9 August 2020. RSF’s live barometer showed nineteen detained people, sixteen journalists and three media workers, when checked on 12 September 2026.

Three United States-brokered releases in June, September and December 2025 freed 189 political prisoners. The December group of 123 included the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, the opposition figures Maria Kolesnikova and Viktar Babaryka, the former TUT.BY editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava and the publicist Aliaksandr Feduta. In March 2026 President Lukashenko pardoned a further eighteen people: fifteen imprisoned for extremist offences and three convicted of other unspecified crimes, eleven of the eighteen being women.

Zolatava had spent four and a half years in detention. BAJ chairperson Andrei Bastunets said those released were effectively deported from the country along with other freed political prisoners, on unclear legal grounds and without documents or explanations. Liudmila Chekina, TUT.BY’s director, sentenced to twelve years, remains imprisoned.

Prosecutions continued alongside the releases. In March 2026 the journalist Pavel Dabravolski was convicted of treason and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment, the fifth media worker jailed in a fortnight.

By August 2025, media-freedom organisations had recorded 39 media organisations as extremist formations. Further designations followed in 2026: on 27 February the KGB designated PEN Belarus an extremist formation, after its website and social-media accounts had already been classified as extremist materials. People may face administrative or criminal liability for distributing or storing designated material, reposting it, or providing assistance to a designated formation.

Journalists abroad are convicted through special in absentia proceedings and face placement on international wanted lists, searches of their homes and threats to relatives remaining in Belarus.

State Media Monitor maps six entries in Belarus. All are classified State-Controlled, and none sits in the independent family.

Belteleradiocompany is the state television and radio broadcaster, operating eight linear television channels, five radio services and five regional television and radio companies, alongside the web-only sports service Belarus 5 Internet. ONT, the Second National TV Channel, is a closed joint-stock company created by presidential decree, operating a television channel, Center FM and the online portal ONT.BY. STV is a closed joint-stock company operating STV, RTR-Belarus and Sport TV alongside the digital platforms ctv.by and belarus-news.by. Belarus Segodnya Publishing House is an institution of the Administration of the President, publishing five newspapers, two radio services and a network edition. Zvyazda Publishing House is a state editorial and publishing institution under the Ministry of Information, publishing five periodicals, a network publication and books. BelTA is the state news agency, a republican unitary enterprise subordinate to the Administration of the President.

Subordination runs to the presidency in most cases. BTRC is subordinate and accountable to the President under Presidential Decree No. 174 of 24 April 2003, which also gives the President the power to appoint and dismiss its chairman. BelTA is subordinate to the Administration of the President, and the President appointed its Director-General on 9 April 2026. Belarus Segodnya is an institution of that Administration. Zvyazda is subordinate to the Ministry of Information, while its flagship newspaper is founded jointly by the Council of Ministers, the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic.

At ONT and STV, public records do not fully establish the current share distributions. The decisive present-day control evidence is therefore presidential involvement in senior appointments and oversight, rather than a verified current ownership percentage. That evidentiary limitation does not disturb their State-Controlled classification.

Senior personnel circulate between these institutions and government office. Dzmitry Zhuk left the Belarus Segodnya Publishing House in April 2026 on appointment as Minister of Information. Olga Anufrieva moved from Zvyazda to Belarus Segodnya on 11 June 2026. Andrei Mokhor moved from ONT’s News Broadcasting Directorate to the BelTA Director-Generalship on 9 April 2026. Igor Lutsky led STV from 2018 to 2020 before taking government office and later the chairmanship of ONT. Aliaksandr Karlyukevich, a former Minister of Information, previously led Zvyazda.

Several outlets state their own remit in official terms. BTRC’s institutional description says Belarus 3 and Belarus 5 participate in implementing state information policy. Zvyazda is described by its publisher as the official organ of the Government and Parliament, while the presidential portal lists coverage of state policy and presidential and government activity among its priorities. BelTA’s official description identifies it as a source of news about the supreme authorities. ONT’s programme catalogue includes a programme titled Propaganda, expressly described as presenting its host’s subjective interpretation of political events.

A single statutory position runs through all six entries. Articles 4 to 7 of the Law on Mass Media, Law No. 427-Z of 17 July 2008, list diversity of opinion and free expression among the principles governing the media and prohibit censorship, monopolisation, demands for prior approval, interference in the professional autonomy of an editorial entity and coercion of journalists to publish or withhold information.

State Media Monitor identified no independent governance or enforcement mechanism at any of the six capable of applying those provisions against the state authorities that own, establish or appoint.

Funding disclosure remains limited, but the 2026 State Budget Law provides current allocations for four mapped entries. BTRC received BYN 151.734 million for television and radio broadcasting. The law separately allocated BYN 5.7 million to ONT, BYN 4.25789 million to STV and BYN 2.901187 million to BelTA as financial assistance from reserve funds; it describes the ONT, STV and BelTA payments as republican-budget subsidies.

No equivalent 2026 outlet-level figures were identified for Belarus Segodnya or Zvyazda. All five of Belarus Segodnya’s principal newspapers appeared on the Government’s list of print publications supported from the republican budget for 2023.

The European Broadcasting Union suspended BTRC in 2021, citing suppression of media freedom, government interference and broadcasts of interviews apparently obtained under duress. In April 2024 the EBU said it had no reason to change its position.

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