BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Date: 02 June 2005

Authorities continue to undermine press freedom

(RSF/IFEX) - On 26 May 2005, police seized all the copies of the independent weekly "Den" when it made a new attempt to publish. The paper has been off newsstands for one year.

"Press freedom is still being completely trampled on in President Alexander Lukashenko's country. He has clearly made no effort to remedy the steep deterioration in the working conditions of journalists who are not in thrall to the government", said RSF. "He does not appear ready to give up his place on the organisation's list of 'predators' of press freedom."

On 26 May, police seized 1,990 copies of the Grodno-based "Den", in the town of Dubrownya, about 30 kilometres from the Russian border, as a truck loaded with the papers was making the journey from its printers in Smolensk, Russia. The police said they needed to verify that the newspaper had been printed legally.

"Den" editor-in-chief Mikalai Markevich told RSF's correspondent that a "reliable source" had said the seizure had been orchestrated by the Grodno department of the State Security Committee (KGB), to prevent the weekly from reappearing for the first time since 2 June 2004.

Four days earlier, the management of the Smolensk printing house received a letter from Deputy Information Minister Liliya Ananich, instructing them that the paper should not be printed, on the pretext that the authorities had not been notified of its new address. The editor had then tried unsuccessfully to meet the minister. She asked him to give his reasons in an official letter.

The deputy minister's letter forced the printing house to break its contract with the weekly until she decided to lift the ban. The editor described the injunction as "state terrorism" against press freedom.

Under the law, a newspaper has to register its new address with the Information Ministry once it has been registered with the local authorities.

"Den" recently changed its Minsk address and asked the town's executive committee to register it on 18 April 2005, but the authorities deliberately held it up.

Markevich lodged a request with the Information Ministry in which he described the police seizure of copies of his weekly as "an unacceptable obstacle to the legal process of regularising his newspaper" and asked the minister to reverse the printing ban.

"Den" was regularly persecuted by the authorities during 2004, until publication was finally halted on 2 June of that year.

In one instance, in May 2004, KGB officers seized four of its computers on the pretext that the weekly had printed "insulting passages" about President Lukashenko.

"Den" is published by the former editorial team of "Pahonya", a weekly the authorities closed in 2001. Markevich, who was also editor of that paper, was sentenced to 18 months of hard labour for publishing an article in which he accused the president of involvement in the disappearance of political opponents. Pavel Mazheika, another member of the "Pahonya" team, was sentenced to one year of hard labour for "insulting" President Lukashenko.

In another development, RSF condemned a decree issued by President Alexander Lukashenko on 21 May 2005, banning all privately-owned news media from using the words "national" or "Belarus" in their names. The decree, which does not apply to the state media, gives newspapers three months to comply by registering under a new name.

"This is a bit too obvious," RSF said. "The sole aim of this presidential decree is to sabotage the few remaining independent news media in Belarus. Day after day, the government continues to find new ways to curb press freedom and harass news media that are not subservient to President Lukashenko. In clearly choosing to discriminate against the privately-owned media, Lukashenko seems to have abandoned any concern for legal subtleties and has taken an undemocratic decision with the sole aim of crushing press diversity," RSF added.

The newspapers that will be forced to change their names include "Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta", "Belorussky Rynok", "Belorusskaya Gazeta" and "Natsionalnaya Ekomicheskaya Gazeta". Not only will they have to spend money to re-register, but they will also have to deal with the technical difficulties of changing their logo and layout, and their banking details. They could also lose readers who fail to recognise the papers by their new names.

Source:

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/67092/


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