Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is is the leader of democratic Belarus.

The Belarus village of Vyazynka is best known as the birthplace of Yanka Kupala, one of our greatest poets. More recently, however, it was featured in a depressing report by human rights activists monitoring the tyranny of Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s despot whose efforts to silence dissent are growing more desperate by the day.

Arrested for taking part in an unauthorized political demonstration, a Vyazynka resident was taken to a local detention center, where he was forced to stand and watch Lukashenko speeches playing continuously on a television monitor 10 hours a night, for three successive nights.

If only Lukashenko could restrict himself to such childish and futile punishments — but instead, he has launched an all-out assault on freedom of speech. According to Reporters Without Borders, Belarus has now become “one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in the world.”

But while the democratic Belarusian media has remained a prime target for Lukashenko’s retribution, even in exile, they continue to investigate his regime, inspiring thousands to continue the fight.

As the democratic leader of Belarus — whose victory in the 2020 presidential election was illegally overturned by Lukashenko — I’ve been subject to his vicious persecution myself. Threats to my life and my children forced me to flee into exile, and today —January 17, 2023 — marks the start of my trial in absentia in a Minsk court, facing a long list of bogus charges including treason against the state, inciting mass riots and conspiring to seize power.

Well, perhaps that last part is true.

I conspired with millions of Belarusian voters to seize democratic power from a dictator who has turned our country into a vassal state of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I only became a presidential candidate because Lukashenko’s secret police locked up my husband, Siarhai, for daring to oppose him. And now I find myself fighting to rally our country’s democrats in the face of unprecedented efforts to silence them.

It was in May 2021 that the rest of the world caught its first real glimpse of the lengths to which Lukashenko was prepared to go in his campaign against journalists. A Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius was forcibly diverted to Minsk, after Belarusian agents faked reports of a bomb threat.

On board the flight was Roman Pratasevich, a dissident Belarus reporter, who had gone into exile to escape arrest. Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, were escorted off the plane and detained. But international outcry at this state-sponsored hijacking still failed to secure the release of the two passengers.

Sapega was eventually sentenced to six years in jail on nonsensical charges. The fate of Pratasevich remains unknown. He was released under house arrest, made several confessions that appeared to have been extracted through torture or threats, and has not been heard from in several months.

Since then, the democratic media in Belarus has stayed in Lukashenko’s crosshairs.

Just a few days ago, five extraordinary women who played key roles at Tut.by — one of the country’s most popular news websites — were put on trial behind closed doors, on a long list of trumped-up charges ranging from tax evasion to “incitement of social hatred and discord.” Liudmila Chekina, the group’s chief executive, and editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava have already spent 20 months in jail. Both are now suffering from serious ill health.

Absurdly, the Belarus KGB listed these journalists as “persons involved in terrorist activities.” But Tut.by’s real “offense” was its diverse coverage of local and international affairs, including critical commentaries on the criminal overturning of the 2020 election.

Meanwhile, almost all other independent media in the country has been designated as “extremist” and forced to shut down or flee. The Belarusian Association of Journalists calculates that over 400 journalists have left the country in the past few years. And at least 33 media workers are behind bars, with Belarus ranking below China, Myanmar, Vietnam and Iran as the world’s most enthusiastic jailer of journalists.

In some cases, imprisoned Belarus journalists whose initial sentences expired have been sentenced to new terms before their release. Just last year, Katsiaryna Andreyeva, a correspondent with Belsat TV, was about to complete a two-year sentence for reporting on the 2020 election protests, when a court sentenced her to another eight years for “giving away state secrets.”

Even those who publicly quit journalism and fell silent were pursued for supposed offenses. Another Belsat TV reporter, Larysa Shchyrakova, was fined for “co-operating with a foreign media outlet” in 2018 and subjected to repeat arrests and harassment. She announced that she was leaving journalism last February and published no further work, yet she was still arrested in December on charges of “discrediting” Belarus. The few truly independent journalists who still work in the country now do so anonymously — and at great risk to themselves and their families.

Putin has unleashed havoc across the border in Ukraine with Lukashenko’s help. The vast majority of my people are horrified by what is happening to our neighbor, and we understand why the plight of our independent media sometimes escapes attention. But it is a mistake to allow Lukashenko free rein to smother dissent.

And it isn’t just the people of Belarus who are suffering from his narcissistic excess — his support of Putin is crucial to Russia’s strategy in Ukraine. As long as Lukashenko barks like a Russian lapdog, Ukraine’s struggle for freedom will be much harder.

One way the rest of the world can help now is by supporting the exiled Belarus media. I am meeting global business leaders at Davos this week and urging them to support independent Belarusian newspapers, digital outlets, radio stations and television channels with advertising and subscription revenues. An independent media is the lifeblood of democracy, and it is crucial that Belarus citizens have access to the facts. The alternative is torture — hours of Lukashenko propaganda aired repeatedly on state media.

I look forward to the day when true media freedom finally returns to my country. As Kupala once wrote: “Send messengers forth, send unto the world’s bound/ As falcon from falcon’s nest winging/ Let them fly, fly away until warriors sound/ Set the thunder of good news ringing.”

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