Belarus Service
Radio Svaboda overcomes significant censorship and pervasive disinformation to provide audiences in Belarus with accurate and independent reporting.
Website page views
(2024)
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(2024)
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(2024)
About the Service
RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, was established in 1954 to reach Belarusian audiences behind the Iron Curtain.
Radio Svaboda reports news from Prague and Vilnius to Belarusians living in a closed society.
According to a 2024 survey conducted in Belarus, Radio Svaboda is reaching 7.4% of the adult population weekly.
The Service’s podcast The Belag Archipelago covers Belarus’ descent into a prison state under Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s rule and its journalists frequently highlight the plight of political prisoners in Belarus.
The Service’s narrative podcast Lukashenka’s Lackeys is a groundbreaking six-part visualized miniseries capturing the brutal crackdown on the 2020 protests from the perspective of security forces.
Radio Svaboda was the first to uncover the emergence of a military camp in Belarus for Russian Wagner mercenaries and its subsequent dismantling.
Reaching Audiences
Media Climate
Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 167th of 180 countries.
Radio Svaboda journalist Ihar Losik is unjustly imprisoned on fabricated charges by Lukashenka’s regime, which seeks to silence independent journalism.
In August 2020, Radio Svaboda websites were blocked. In July 2021, Radio Svaboda’s Minsk bureau was raided and sealed.
In December 2021, Radio Svaboda was designated an “extremist organization” by Belarus’ Interior Ministry, criminalizing the reporting, distribution, and consumption of RFE/RL content.
In July 2024, Yury Drakakhrust, a journalist and analyst for the Belarus Service based in Prague, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by Belarusian authorities on false charges.
Latest Updates
RFE/RL Journalist Farid Mehralizada Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison in Azerbaijan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) called the case against Farid a “sham.”
Audiences in Iran and Across Middle East Surge to U.S.-Funded Farda and Alhurra amid Israel-Iran Conflict
U.S.-funded media organizations Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) are bringing millions of people in Iran and across the Middle East real-time, 24/7 news coverage…
US District Court Orders USAGM to Release RFE/RL Funding for May
Today, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s third request for a temporary restraining order in its lawsuit…
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