BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

27/11/2006

Belarus Threatens to Close Newspaper

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus - Belarusian authorities have warned a leading independent newspaper that it could face closure - a move its editor on Monday described as part of government efforts to muzzle critical voices.

Deputy Information Minister Lilia Ananich said the weekly Nasha Niva had been handed an official warning over its failure to indicate its address in the most recent issues published this month as required by Belarusian law. "The editors have rudely violated the law," she said.

The newspaper, which marked its 100th anniversary this month, had to change its offices four times this year after authorities barred it from the capital, Minsk. The state postal agency has refused to distribute the weekly, and authorities also have barred it from subscription.

"The Belarusian authorities don't stop attempts to destroy the last remaining independent newspapers in the country," Nasha Niva's editor Andrey Dynko said.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media rights watchdog, criticized the Belarusian authorities' moves against Nasha Niva, saying the newspaper's rental contracts had been canceled under official pressure.

"As in the case of Arche, a cultural magazine suspended by the Information Ministry in September, the authorities often use these practices to neutralize the independent press," the group said in a statement issued Friday.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the ex-Soviet republic with an iron fist since 1994, destroying opposition parties, shuttering independent newspapers and earning the nickname "Europe's last dictator."

Lukashenko's government has formed a loose union with Russia and is deeply suspicious of Western inroads into the region.

Source:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/89-11272006-747858.html