How defamatory narratives, unverified allegations and the disclosure of sensitive information can endanger political exiles
Analytical article based on monitoring by Siarhei Tsikhanouski and Our House
When media narratives become a form of transnational pressure
For Belarusian democratic activists who have fled political persecution, exile does not necessarily bring an end to the threats they face, because reputational attacks, the circulation of unverified accusations and the exposure of sensitive personal information can follow them across borders, undermining both their security and their ability to participate in public life. A new monitoring report, “Hybrid Propaganda Attacks Against Democratic Activists from Belarus,” prepared by Siarhei Tsikhanouski and the Our House International Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, examines how these risks may arise not only from openly pro-government propaganda but also, according to the authors, from the editorial practices of a Belarusian outlet operating in exile.
The 50-page report analyses Nasha Niva’s coverage of participants in the Belarusian democratic movement between 2020 and 2026, drawing on published articles, court and administrative records, and other cited materials. Rather than treating each disputed headline as an isolated incident, the authors trace repeated patterns in which insinuation is presented alongside fact, political disagreement is reframed as evidence of disloyalty, and serious allegations acquire apparent credibility through their publication by a recognised news outlet.
Defamation through repetition and association
One of the report’s central findings is that reputational harm need not depend on a single explicit accusation: when a politician is repeatedly introduced as a “provocateur,” a “conspiracy theorist” or an opponent of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, those descriptions can gradually displace the substance of the person’s political work, while readers are encouraged to interpret subsequent actions through an already established negative frame. The authors argue that such cumulative labelling is particularly damaging when it is combined with suggestions of connections to Belarusian or Russian security services, even though the publication itself does not provide evidence sufficient to establish those connections.
The report illustrates this mechanism through the case of Veronika Tsepkalo, whose association with the “Russian World” was constructed, according to the analysis, through the biography of a former leader of an organisation who had left years before she joined its renewed leadership. In its discussion of Dzmitry Bolkunets, the monitoring similarly challenges a biographical association with a Russian political commentator and describes how the repeated portrayal of independent political initiatives as absurd or provocative can substitute ridicule for substantive scrutiny. These examples raise a wider journalistic question: at what point does the selective presentation of technically related facts become a misleading accusation by association?
The right of reply and unequal standards of verification
The authors identify what they describe as an asymmetry in editorial standards, arguing that allegations involving individuals close to Tsikhanouskaya’s Office are more likely to be scrutinised or rejected as unfounded, whereas accusations directed at independent critics may be circulated with less visible verification. Although criticism of politicians and civil-society leaders is an indispensable part of democratic debate, the legitimacy of such criticism depends on whether assertions of fact are adequately supported and whether the people concerned have a meaningful opportunity to respond.
According to the monitoring, the outlet rarely sought comments from the individuals examined in the report before publishing disputed material about them. If established in the individual cases, this practice would raise substantial concerns under widely recognised principles of journalistic ethics, which distinguish factual reporting from opinion and call for fairness when serious allegations may cause reputational or personal harm. The report’s authors are themselves among those discussed in the coverage, a circumstance they acknowledge while pointing readers to the underlying publications and documents.
From public humiliation to personal danger
The potential consequences become more serious when reporting moves beyond political conduct and begins to disclose information about relatives, employment, medical circumstances or a person’s location. The report describes how publications concerning activist Vitaly Kondratenko combined information about his city of residence with details of his work and routine, thereby potentially making him easier to locate, while its examination of Dzmitry Skinderev highlights the publication of extensive family information and data attributed to restricted databases. In the context of transnational repression, the accumulation of individually modest details may create risks that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Public-interest journalism can legitimately investigate public figures, their finances and their conduct, but this does not remove the need to assess necessity, proportionality and foreseeable harm, especially where relatives remain in Belarus or where the person concerned has already experienced political persecution. The report also draws attention to abusive comments beneath articles, arguing that the repeated public humiliation of identifiable individuals can reinforce defamatory narratives rather than merely reflect spontaneous reader disagreement.
When an allegation crosses into an official file
Perhaps the most consequential concern raised by the monitoring is the movement of disputed media narratives into institutional settings, where an accusation that began as an anonymous claim or a speculative headline may subsequently be cited in migration, accreditation or national-security procedures. The report discusses, among other examples, the cases of Sviatlana Haluza, Dzmitry Skinderev and Volha Karach, and describes circumstances in which adverse publicity was followed by official scrutiny or consequences affecting legal security. These accounts warrant independent examination of the evidence and chronology; publication followed by an administrative action does not, by itself, prove that the publication caused the action.
Nevertheless, the underlying risk is clear: once a defamatory allegation has been repeated across outlets, translated into another language or reproduced in a dossier, its origin and evidentiary limitations may become difficult to identify, while the person targeted may face the burden of rebutting a claim that was never properly substantiated in the first place. For political refugees, whose ability to remain safely outside Belarus may depend on administrative decisions, such information laundering can have consequences far beyond damaged reputation.
Protecting journalism without excusing disinformation
The monitoring is not an argument against investigative reporting, robust political criticism or the independence of Belarusian media; on the contrary, its significance lies in insisting that these freedoms must be accompanied by consistent standards of verification, a clear separation between allegation and established fact, respect for privacy, and effective opportunities to correct harmful inaccuracies. The fact that an outlet operates in exile or presents itself as part of a democratic information space cannot, by itself, settle whether a particular accusation was responsibly reported.
The report ultimately invites donors, journalists, human rights organisations and European institutions to examine the documented cases on their merits, while distinguishing the authors’ allegations and interpretations from findings independently established by courts or regulators. Its central warning is that a democratic movement is weakened when public debate gives way to systematic stigmatisation, and that people who have escaped authoritarian repression should not have to confront new threats created by the careless or selective circulation of accusations in the societies where they have sought protection.
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