CULTURE & ADVOCACY Advocacy is a means of advancing our mission and at best of achieving our goals. However, methodologies vary enormously. Influencing public policy and decisions on priorities and resource allocations differs quite a bit from advocating for artistic freedom. Professional organizations may organize campaigns for the release of artists for years without results. Other times such campaigns may result in artists being released. Repressive regimes will never reveal when and why they may decide to release artists, but when this happens, artists can often tell that it was pressure from the outside that not only helped get them to get released but even gave them hope while imprisoned. So, there is not necessarily a direct link between efforts and results. Sometimes campaigns and advocacy succeed simply because the right decision-makers receive and are open to advocacy at the right time. Such an example may be found in Belarus, when a campaign from the Belarusian Culture Solidarity Foundations in 2021 led to EBU46 suspending the membership47 of the Belarusian broadcaster, BTRC. BELARUS: EXCLUSION OF BTRC FROM THE EBU On 24 May 2022 the European Broadcasting Union at a meeting in the Executive Board agreed to suspend national Belarus broadcaster Member BTRC. The EBU in a press release[1] mentioned it had “been closely monitoring the suppression of media freedom in Belarus and had consistently called on BTRC, as a Member of the EBU, to uphold our core values of freedom of expression, independence and accountability.” Being suspended meant, that the national Belarusian broadcaster will neither have access to programmes from the network nor will be able to take part in joint projects such as The Eurovision Song Contest. But what was really behind this step? The press release did not mention a yearlong campaign initiated by the Belarusian Council for Culture which already in January 2021 appealed to the European Broadcasting Union to disqualify Belarus from the EBU. The letter contained the facts of repeated and permanent violations of journalistic standards, journalistic ethics, and censorship in relation to the Belarusian artists - these were a direct violation of the EBU statute. As there was no immediate response from the EBU main office BCC launched a full-scale information campaign. The campaign involved the Office of Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, National Anti-Crisis Management, and Belarusian diasporas in EU countries. The BCC also addressed the broadcasters from the Executive Board of the EBU, some of whom supported the campaign and made statements on the matter. As a result of the campaign initiated by the BCC, BTRC was expelled from the EBU. Source: Belarusian Council for Culture. Advocacy and campaigns may obviously be relevant on the local, regional, and national level – if you wish to give attention to discrimination of minority groups, change specific culture policies or unfair regulations. 46 The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is an alliance of public service media organizations, established on 12 February 1950. The organization is made up of 115 member organizations in 56 countries, and 34 associate members from a further 21 countries. 47 40 https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/belarus-ebu-membership-suspended