Diana Maxi: Visa Denial – My Vision of Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

Among the representatives of international organizations, who were denied entry visas by Belarusian authorities was also Diana Maxi from the OSCE department for the freedom of speech. In her interview to Radio Svaboda Diana Maxi cited a possible cause of visa refusal – her views on ongoing events in Belarus.“Ahead of the ballot the situation with the freedom of media in Belarus significantly deteriorated. It had never been perfect before too. But what’s happening right now is simply unimaginable.” Read the full text of the interview on our site.

- Before the elections Alexander Lukashenko behaves in such a manner as if he was prone to hinder the international monitoring of the ballot. Does such conduct exclude from the beginning the very possibility that OSCE may ever recognize the elections as fair?

- We have to wait and see the end of the situation. The Belarusian authorities have finally allowed a small number of observers to enter the country. Not everybody has been granted visas. Seems like the motivation for the refusal was the same as mine. They made up their mind not to allow certain individuals dwell in the country. But now it is more important to enable those observers who are already in Belarus to accomplish their mission. They are real professionals and do their best. But they came way to late and OSCE now questions their possibility to do the job.

- How would you assess the tactics of the Belarusian authorities not to issue visas to international observers, representatives of international human rights watchdogs and even journalists?

- That’s an unprecedented and tough situation and it is saddening that it happens in a country, which is in the heart of Europe.

- Is there any chance left for Lukashenko to be treated by your organization as legitimate in case of his re-election for another tenure after all that his regime had done?

- Regretfully, harassment and intimidation of independent press is underway even now. In OSCE we and also our head Freimut Duve call it a structural censorship, when they seek minor inaccuracies as a pretext to forbid the newspapers to publish their materials. The observers need a couple of weeks to deal with everything and obtain objective data – only in this case the elections could be considered fair.