“The State for the People,” edition of 2 March 2006. “Soviet Belorussia” presents the programme of President Alexander Lukashenko, who is running for a fourth term. BELARUS : INSTITUTIONALIZED HARASSMENT OF THE NEWS MEDIA March 2006 Reporters Without Borders Europe Desk 5, rue Geoffroy Marie - 75009 Paris Tél : (33) 1 44 83 84 84 - Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51 E-mail :
[email protected] - Web : www.rsf.org The Belarusian news media have never been independent press in the past two years. subject to so much harassment as now, three Thanks to state-owned monopolies, the govern- days before the 19 March presidential election. ment controls the entire network of newspaper First elected president in 1994 and now running production and distribution. It is easy to elimi- for a fourth term, Alexander Lukashenko has nate a newspaper in this centrally-controlled concentrated all power in himself and controls economy. You terminate its printing contracts, this former Soviet republic, and its nearly 10 mil- you terminate its contracts for distribution to lion inhabitants, with an iron hand. Notorious for news stands and by subscription, you prevent it once commenting that “not everything was so from selling advertising space by putting pres- bad in the famous Adolf Hitler’s Germany,” sure on all the advertisers, and you bring law- Lukashenko is quick to get rid of opponents. If suits in order to throttle it with heavy fines and they are lucky, he forces them into exile. If they damages awards. are not, he allegedly has them eliminated physi- cally. At the end of 2005, 13 independent newspapers suddenly found that the state-owned postal ser- He has not spared journalists in his quest for vice, Belpochta, had dropped them from the list power.