Journalists for Tolerance regularly monitor hate speech against vulnerable groups in the Belarusian media. This year, the way LGBTQ+ was presented in the media space has deteriorated significantly.
Journalists for Tolerance regularly monitor hate speech against vulnerable groups in the Belarusian media, including annual monitoring of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. For the ten months, from January to October 2022, we observed rhetorical fallacies against LGBTQ+. Below are the main trends:
- 53% of media publications contained incorrect speech regarding LGBTQ+, and only 47% — correct. The share of incorrect materials in the media again exceeds the share of correct ones, and the trend is negative.
- Incorrect speech has become as common in the national media as in the local media, this is a significant regression compared to the situation before the beginning of the political crisis in Belarus.
- In 2022, almost every second publication on the topic of LGBTQ+ in the Belarusian media contained hate speech manifestations.
- This is the first time we have seen a situation where correct vocabulary is used to incite hatred. As for incorrect vocabulary, in most cases it is accompanied by hate speech manifestations.The full text is available at the link.
