‘They can say what Belarus govt can't say about Russia’ - Al Jazeera about Belsat TV

In the article ‘Russia and Belarus: Behind the media battle’ Al Jazeera examined the media component of the relations between Moscow and Minsk.

“Minsk and Moscow have been allies for years, with Belarus being economically and politically dependent on Russia for a long time. But a recent spat over energy subsidies and Russia’s campaign in Ukraine have made relations fragile, so Minsk has increasingly turned to the West for new, alternative allies,” the article reads.

Russia’s influence on the Belarusian information space has grown problematic for president Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authors state.

At the same time, confronting the Kremlin is only one of Lukashenka’s legion of problems. The publication refers to the spring ‘non-parasite’ protests in Belarus and calls Belsat TV ‘the closest thing Belarusians have to an uncensored channel on the airwaves’.

The very interesting thing about Belsat TV is that they’re highly critical of the Belarusian government. They’ve existed for 10 years and their journalists are harassed, but they haven’t been fully shut down yet. I interviewed the programming director of Belsat TV and I asked him why in such a kind of highly censored country had they been able to operate for 10 years? And he kind of floated the idea of maybe actually they can say what the Belarusian government can’t say about Russia. Which is actually maybe useful to the Belarusian government in the long run,” Amy Mackinnon, senior editor at Coda Story, told Al Jazeera.

In May, Coda Story, a single-issue web platform, released a short video about Belsat TV:

belsat.eu, following Al Jazeera