• Priority Area Boosting Fact-checking Activities in Europe
• Funding Round / Action Types 3rd Funding Round – Urgent Actions
• Year 2023, 2024
• Country Czech Republic
• Project Status Ongoing

The project is aimed at imposing extra cost on corruption and sanctions evasion, as well as countering false narratives in the media.

Belarusian Investigative Center’s (BIC) added value to anti-fake is that it takes on the fakes that are not obviously ridiculous, which Belarusian and Russian propaganda frequently publishes, but rather on those that make an investigative challenge to find and debunk.

Investigations are a key in exposing inefficiencies of the current global sanctions mechanisms, imposed on Belarus and Russia for internal repressions and the attack on Ukraine.

The investigations are then picked up by actors in their quest to make sanctions more effective.

The problems:

Restriction of information. Pushing propaganda.
BIC’s investigative methods, analytical skills, regular international collaborations give us a deeper and wider perspective on events.

Ineffectiveness of sanctions:

Since 2020 BIC has become one of the world’s experts in evasions of sanctions, imposed on Belarus and Russia in order to force them to stop hostilities against Ukraine and repressions against their own population.
BIC provides facts about sanctions evasion schemes and contributes to a shift in sanctions enforcement policies globally, play a key role in making policies against Belarus more targeted.

The main objectives are:

• to impose maximum additional costs on corruption and sanctions evasion in Belarus and Lithuania though investigative stories,
• to counter misinformation by debunking fake news,
• to develop critical thinking among the general Belarusian and foreign audience.

BIC will use the OCCRP methodology to identify and classify fakes.

For the period from April to September 2023 BIC will produce no less than 6 anti-fake videos, amounting to no less than 22 debunked fakes and 5 video episodes of investigations of grand corruption.

Each video will be accompanied by 3-6 text or multimedia content pieces published on the BIC’s social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok).

The content produced and published will generate at least 9 000 000 views on BIC website and social media.