BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

12/04/2006

Freed Canadian calls for change in Belarus

MICHAEL DEN TANDT

OTTAWA -- He was 22, just out of Laval University, and looking to try his hand at reporting from a foreign hot spot. But Frederick Lavoie chose his locale a little too well.

Mr. Lavoie, a Canadian freelance journalist released on the weekend after spending 15 days in a Belarussian prison, came to Ottawa yesterday to add his voice to international calls for democratic reforms in the former Soviet republic.

"I didn't suffer," he said at a news conference in Parliament's Centre Block. "But I was always thinking that there were people in there worse off than me, Belarussians who were beaten up when they were arrested."

Mr. Lavoie was arrested in Minsk last month while reporting on the protests against widely condemned elections. The government of Belarus, led by Moscow ally Alexander Lukashenko, quashed the protests and jailed hundreds of activists.

While making his statement yesterday, the journalist was flanked by Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, New Democratic Party MP Peggy Nash and Bloc Quebecois MP Robert Bouchard. He was careful to say that he was not speaking as an advocate for the Belarussian opposition, but rather for press freedom.

Conditions for him and the other political prisoners were good, Mr. Lavoie said. "I wasn't beaten up or tortured or threatened."

He was interviewed by the country's secret police, however. They tried to persuade him to sign a document saying he'd seen no abuses of democratic freedoms in Belarus. "I refused," he said.

Belarussian authorities initially charged Mr. Lavoie with actively participating in a "non-authorized" meeting, he said. Later they said he had falsely represented himself because he did not have proper journalist's credentials.

Mr. Lavoie said he travelled without credentials on purpose, saying the accreditation process in Belarus is riddled with government attempts at media control.

The United States, Canada and a half dozen European countries have said they will impose sanctions and travel bans on Belarussian officials as a result of the crackdown last month. After Mr. Lavoie's arrest, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay met with the Belarussian ambassador, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for the Canadian's immediate release.

Yesterday, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj and his two parliamentary colleagues called on the federal government to take more action to protect human rights in Belarus.

Mr. Lavoie said he'd like to go back to Belarus to continue his work, but can't: He has been banned from entering the country for three years.

Source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060412.BELARUS12/TPStory/National