Media centre for Belarusian journalists to be opened in Białystok

"I hope the journalists, who will use the facility, will be able to work there for the cause of a free, democratic Belarus, and that this work will bring positive effects as soon as possible," deputy mayor of Białystok Zbigniew Niktorowicz said on Monday.

Thereby, the city authorities have handed the Linking Media foundation members the keys to a council apartment at Sienkiewicz 44 street. The place is to become a hub at which journalists from various media outlets, who had to flee Belarus due to political reasons, will continue their work.

"Currently, according to various data, 26 or 27 male and female journalists are in prison or detention in Belarus, while about a hundred people doing journalism-related work have been forced to leave that country," said Maria Sadowska-Komlacz, member of the Linking Media foundation and journalist who has been living in Poland for 15 years.

She stressed that Belarusian journalists have been fleeing to Georgia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Poland.

"The apartment in Białystok will be a sort of a newsroom, where journalists would be able to feel part of a community again. To once again realise they are in a real newsroom, from where they can continue to send news to the media and viewers back at home, or maybe also, together with Polish journalists, launch new media projects," Sadowska-Komlacz said.

The media centre at Sienkiewicz 44 will be a place of work for exiled journalists from portals such as Hrodna.life or Mohylewski Region.

Alexei Szota, editor-in-chief of the Hrodna.life portal will be a contact point for journalists who will decide to leave or be forced to do so in the coming days or months.

"Now they will know for a hundred percent where to head for. That there is a place that will accept them and let them do their work," he added.

Białystok city hall has offered preferential rent rates. The fee is only 752,76 zlotys per month. The place has 73m2 and requires a minor renovation. It was rented for a year with an extension option.

"It's our duty to support Belarusians, political refugees persecuted by Alexander Lukashanko's regime. Białystok is a particularly good place for such support and activity. We are neighbours, Grodno is our brother city. I also think that this is an investment of the Białystok council and Poland in general in good relations with democratic Belarus," Niktorowicz said.