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Institutionalized Harassment of the News Media “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. Dimitri Zavadski, a cameraman who wor- of publications whose subscriptions it would ked for the Russian TV station ORT, is the best- continue to deliver in 2006. There used to be known case. He disappeared in 2000 without privately-owned distribution companies in his body ever being found. To hold on to the top Belarus, but their licences were withdrawn. job, Lukashenko sidestepped the constitution Around this time, the same independent news- by holding a referendum in October 2004 in papers found their printing contracts had been which he asked Belarusians to let him have ano- terminated by the state-owned press, Krasnaya ther term. Originally scheduled for July 2006, Zvezda. In order to keep their print versions the election was brought forward to 19 March at going, several newspapers turned to a Russian the behest of Lukashenko, who rules by “ukaz” printer in Smolensk, 320 km west of the (presidential decree) and does not have to give Belarusian capital, Minsk. But this is expensive. any explanations. It forced the independent newspapers Narodnaya Volya and BG Delovaya Gazeta By advancing the date of the elections, (BDG) to reduce their print runs considerably Lukashenko caught everyone unprepared – his and to publish weekly instead of two or three political opponents, the news media and the times a week. international observers deployed throughout the country by the Organisation for Security and The state-owned company Belsoyuzdruk, Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the which has the press distribution monopoly, elections. Now the man who once said “my began barring independent newspapers from dream is to continue fighting with a weapon in sale on news stands at the start of last winter. my hand until the end” is on the point of winning Narodnaya Volya, which was the country’s only another election whose outcome is known in independent daily, was withdrawn from the advance. Called “Europe’s last dictator” by news stands in October, like many others. Washington, he has swept all obstacles from his Opposition newspapers have completely disap- path, doing everything possible to reduce the peared from the news stands. The latest to independent media to silence and gaining com- : disappear is, Zhoda, the social-democratic plete control of the news circulating inside his movement’s newspaper, which was raided by country. Only the Internet is not yet under his the secret services and then suspended at the control. end of February. Foreign publications also can- not be found, except for the Russian dailies Free press on the brink Izvestia and Komsomolskaya Pravda, which rarely write about Belarus. The provincial press of extinction has not been spared either. Such reputable newspapers as Birzha Informaciji, Novaja Advanced gradually, using an arsenal of finely Gazeta Smorgoni and Kurier iz Borisova have tuned bureaucratic weapons, the Belarusian been closed down or suspended. At the end of INSTITUTIONALIZED HARASSMENT OF THE NEWS MEDIA BELARUS authorities have virtually wiped out the country’s 2005, the authorities also banned Glos znad 2 Niemna, the newspaper of Belarus’s Polish nor definitely closed down. But the government minority, which is subject to government deprives them of all means of subsistence and harassment. forces them to use informal distribution net- works. Copies of these newspapers are someti- Today, only two independent newspapers, mes mailed to their subscribers inside envelo- BelGazeta and Belorusy I Rynok, have permis- pes, directly from the newspaper’s office. This is sion to be sold on news stands in the capital. what BDG and Narodnaya Gazeta do. The BDG With print runs of 20,000 and 11,000, these two print runs are less than 5,000 and 30,000 for weeklies cannot compete with the big-circula- Narodnaya Gazeta and they organise their own tion state newspapers. According to the distribution. Their most committed readers pass Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), the copies from hand to hand as in the good old newspaper published by the president’s office, days of the samizdats circulated by Soviet dis- Sovietskaya Bielorussia, increased its daily print sidents. Some newspapers, such as the former run from 200,000 to 500,000 last spring. weeklies Nasha Niva and Solidarnost, have cea- sed to produce a print version and just have an BELARUSIAN ASSOCIATION OF JOURNALISTS (BAJ) electronic version on the Internet. A non-governmental organisation founded in In all, there are two independent national news- 1995, the BAJ defends free speech, the right of papers still available at news stands, BelGazeta access to independent information, and profes- and Belorusy I Rynok, two others, BDG and sional standards of journalism. It has more than Narodnaya Gazeta, that are struggling to keep 1,000 members from every kind of news media, going, and one privately-owned news agency, both state and privately-owned, and has repre- BelaPan, based in the capital. The US govern- sentatives in the provinces. It has been affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists ment-funded Radio Svaboda (called Radio Free since 1997 and to Reporters Without Borders Europe/Radio Liberty in English), still broad- since 2003. casts clandestinely in Belarus, as in the Soviet era. The foreign news agencies AP, Reuters and The BAJ has legal centre for the protection of Agence France-Presse and the German public the news media that represents its members in radio station Deutsche Welle have Belarusian court and in their dealings with other state enti- correspondents but no bureaux registered with ties. The centre also provides legal advice and the authorities. analyses press legislation. The BAJ monitors and issues statements about press law viola- tions and conflicts between the authorities and “BDG must be closed” - news media. Its representatives are closely wat- ched by the secret services and are searched autopsy of an independent thoroughly whenever they leave or enter the newspaper country. In 2004, the BAJ was awarded the European BG Delovaya Gazeta – usually called BDG parliament’s Sakharov Prize for what the parlia- because its original name was Beloruskaya ment’s president, Joseph Borrell Fontelles, cal- Delovaya Gazeta – used to be one of the best led its “fight for freedom of information against known and most prosperous newspapers in : President Lukashenko’s attempts to smother it.” Minsk. Created just after Belarus became inde- pendent in 1992, it gradually specialised in poli- tical and business news. It built up a large rea- Government aid is substantial. The amount dership and went from being a weekly to a assigned in the budget for governmental news- biweekly. After making a fortune, BDG owner papers has doubled in the two years from 2004 and editor Piotr Martsev set up his own publi- to 2006, going from around 30 million to 60 mil- shing house and launched three other newspa- lion dollars. pers: Imya, BDG Dlia Slujebnogo Polzovania and Avtomobilnyi. His group was able to have An entire section of the press can now do no its own distribution network because at that more than hope to survive. Generally, indepen- stage no restrictive law regulated the sector. INSTITUTIONALIZED HARASSMENT OF THE NEWS MEDIA BELARUS dent newspapers are neither officially banned According to Martsev, the country’s best 3 journalists used to work at BDG. Now it is on president’s office forced retail outlets to break the verge of bankruptcy and they gone off to their contract with the newspaper. In 2005, work in Russia or Germany. BDG was besieged with libel suits and was sentenced to pay 150,000 dollars (125,000 According to a former journalist who only euros) in damages to an official and a fine of 50 recently left BDG, it was by far the best newspa- ,000 dollars (41,000 euros). Within two months, per in terms of the quality and objectivity of its the newspaper found itself in the red. It recei- news coverage. Its reputation was such that ved another sentence after a visit by the tax people wanted to be interview by it.
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