Belarus: Assault at Press in 2001 :: Charter'97 :: News

President Aleksandr Lukashenko continued his assault on the independent and opposition press in 2001, and he managed to cling to power in September 9 presidential elections amid charges of human rights violations and extensive electoral fraud. Throughout the year, independent publications faced harassment, censorship, seizures, and closures for criticizing the regime. Little progress was made in the infamous case of disappeared cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky, and troubling legal "reforms" were proposed at end of the year.

Press freedom abuses intensified in the month prior to the September poll. On August 17, police from the State Committee for Financial Investigation seized 400,000 copies the special election issue of the independent triweekly Nasha Svaboda, which endorsed opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik and predicted Lukashenko`s defeat.
While the government launched spurious tax audits against several opposition newspapers in advance of the poll, the most significant crackdown occurred on August 22, when the State Committee for Financial Investigation seized equipment and froze bank accounts of the Magic publishing house, which prints most Minsk-based independent papers. Authorities sealed Magic`s printing presses, blocking the publication of dozens of independent newspapers, Stepan Zhirnostyok, Magic`s executive director, told CPJ.
Magic`s owner, Yuri Budko, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the committee officials justified their actions by referring to an earlier court order that Budko had successfully challenged in 2000.
The publishing house resumed work five days later, after Budko agreed to appoint the deputy head of the State Press Committee, Vladimir Glushakov, as the acting director of Magic during the ongoing investigation, local and international sources reported. While at Magic, Glushakov censored the independent publications Rabochy, Predprinimatelskaya Gazeta, and Narodnaya Volya for allegedly defaming President Lukashenko. Glushakov stopped working at the Magic publishing house three days after the election, local sources told CPJ.
During the election period, Belarusian authorities denied a number of international monitors entry into the country, including a CPJ consultant who intended to monitor press conditions in Belarus prior to the September 9 poll.
Meanwhile, little progress was made in the investigation into the case of Dmitry Zavadsky, a cameraman with the Russian public television station ORT who vanished on July 7, 2000. Zavadsky`s disappearance shocked Belarusian society and also served as a grim reminder of the security risks journalists face in Belarus.
Credible leads have implicated high-level Belarusian government officials in the disappearance. In June, Dmitry Petrushkevich, a member of the investigative team on the Zavadsky case, and Oleg Sluchek, a former Prosecutor`s Office employee, went into exile in the United States and alleged that a "death squad" created by high-level government officials to eliminate Lukashenko`s political opponents killed Zavadsky.
Throughout the year, CPJ issued numerous statements calling for an independent, international investigation and urging the government to bring the perpetrators to justice. However, a year and a half after the journalist`s disappearance, Zavadsky`s fate remains unknown.
The investigation has focused on four suspects—Valery Ignatovich, Maksim Malik, Aleksei Guz and Sergei Saushkin—known as the Ignatovich Group. Officials claim that Ignatovich, a former officer of the elite special forces unit, Almaz, and a member of the ultranationalist organization Russian National Unity, led the gang that abducted the journalist.
Although Belarusian authorities have neither found Zavadsky`s body nor established a plausible motive, in May, they charged members of the Ignatovich Group with kidnapping the journalist. According to the official theory, he was abducted in revenge for filming Belarusian military servicemen, including Ignatovich, as they fought alongside rebel forces in Chechnya.
On October 24, the Minsk Regional Court began the trial of the Ignatovich Group, according to local and international sources. Despite the fact that Zavadsky`s wife, along with local civic organizations and opposition activists, demanded an open trial, it remains closed to the public. Proceedings continued into 2002, and in January, Interior Minister Naumov announced that regardless of the trial`s outcome, the investigation into Zavadsky`s disappearance would continue.
Legislation amending the 1995 Media Law, slated for review by the National Assembly in spring 2002, will further restrict the independent press in Belarus. Although the draft law simplifies registration procedures and increases the number of warnings the government must give publications before closing them for violating regulations, the legislation contains many vague provisions that can be used to curb independent media.
The amended law prohibits the mere mention of unregistered political parties or civic organizations; enjoins media outlets from receiving money from foreign or anonymous donors; and introduces new regulations for publications with a print run of less than 500 copies that could be used to censor them.
The law allows the Information Ministry to annul a media outlet`s registration without judicial authorization. If it passes, the draft law will only add to the sizable arsenal of tactics used by the Lukashenko regime to stifle the independent press.