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Belarusian journalists win prestigious Russian award

Belarusian journalists Iryna Khalip and Katsyaryna Kibalchych have won a prestigious Russian media award.

The Golden Pen of Russia awards are presented annually for achievements in journalism.
Ms. Khalip, wife of former presidential candidate Andrey Sannikaw, is a reporter of Russia’s newspaper Novaya Gazeta, while Ms. Kibalchych is a correspondent of Russia’s First Channel in Belarus.

The awards were presented in Moscow on February 11. A large Novaya Gazeta banner put at the venue featured Mr. Khalip’s image and explained that she could not pick up the award because she was under house arrest in Minsk.

Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, collected Ms. Khalip’s award. He said that the situation in Belarus was “even worse than in Russia” and described the Kremlin’s cooperation with Alyaksandr Lukashenka as a disgrace.

Ms. Kibalchych received the award in recognition of her reports about last year’s presidential election in Belarus. While picking up the award, the woman noted that “it has become now very difficult for journalists to work in Minsk, especially for my colleagues who live in the country permanently.” “Many of them helped me and this is their award, too. In general, Russian channels provided objective coverage of the election in Belarus, found airtime and exact words for assessing the events,” she said.

Irina Petrovskaya, a prominent journalist who hosted the ceremony, emphasized the importance of following closely the situation in Belarus. “One should follow the events in Minsk, so that similar things do not repeat in Russia,” she said. //BelaPAN