Belarus Expels Russian Journalist :: Charter'97 :: News

Pavel Selin, the Minsk correspondent from Russia’s leading nationwide channel NTV, was given 24 hours to leave Belarus on Saturday. Belarusian authorities accuse the reporter of biased coverage of the writer Vasil Bykov’s funeral. This is not the first time that Minsk has found fault with Selin’s reports. He had already received two official warnings for previous reports.

On Saturday the NTV correspondent was summoned to the Foreign Ministry of Belarus, where he was handed the official papers ordering him to leave the republic by 16.00 on June 29. Commenting on his expulsion, Selin told Ekho Moskvy radio station on Saturday that he is very sorry and feels awkward and ashamed that he has been involved in a ``dance on the grave`` of the prominent Belarusian writer, orchestrated by the Belarusian authorities.

Vasil Bykov, one of the great figures of Soviet literature who won acclaim for his novels about ordinary soldiers in WWII, died on June 22 of cancer, several days after he returned to Minsk from exile. For the past several years the writer had lived abroad, in the Czech Republic and Germany. He had left the country in protest at the Lukashenko regime.

In an interview to Ekho Moskvy radio station, Pavel Selin said that the Belarusian authorities ``could have found another pretext [for expelling him] less tragic, but let this rest on their conscience``.

At a meeting with the Belarusian Foreign Ministry official, Selin was told: ``There are three things that the authorities did not like in my report. Firstly, the problems with the domicile registration of Bykov’s widow, Irina Mikhailovna, which had emerged just before the writer`s death. I spoke about this in a report. I also spoke about what the authorities had done before the funeral ceremony. They took the opposition flags off the coffin and put on state flags… The authorities did not allow the coffin to be taken to the cemetery in peace. They created an artificial traffic jam and in fact forced people to carry the coffin by hand.

``These are the three counts, but I think this is just a pretext. The main thing was a very tough interview with [Belarusian opposition leader Stanislav] Shushkevich, the first Belarusian leader, about why Lukashenko failed to attend the funeral,`` Selin said. In particular, Shushkevich claimed Lukashenko was the only person in Belarus not to have read Bykov’s books. ``The Belarusian authorities have long harboured grievances against me, this was the last straw,`` he added.

Director general of NTV Nikolai Senkevich told the same radio station on Saturday that the company management believes that ``our correspondent fulfilled his duties in a proper manner, just as any journalist should do his job``. He also noted, that the company ``is considering the fate of its office in Minsk``.

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed regret over Belarus’ move to expel the reporter. ``I am sorry such actions have been taken by our Belarusian counterparts. The Russian Foreign Ministry expects an explanation of the reasons that led Minsk to take this step,`` the Ministry’s spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Interfax news agency.

For his part, the secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, Gennady Nevyglas, denounced Selin’s report as ``barefaced disinformation``. Last Saturday Nevyglas told the press that the prosecutor’s office of the republic would probe last Wednesday’s report of Vasil Bykov’s funeral.

President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting with the country’s law enforcers demanded they look into the circumstances of the funeral, and if it proved true that certain officials hindered the procession, they must be punished. But if the NTV report did not conform to reality, he would demand apologies from the channel’s management, the Belarusian leader said.

In his report Selin, among other things, alleged that the authorities objected to the procession, aware that it might develop into an opposition march.

However, the chairperson of the International Literary Foundation Rimma Kazakova, who attended Bykov’s funeral, said on Saturday, no obstacles had been put in the way of the mourners by the authorities. The only thing police officers had asked of the mourners was to keep to the right side of the street, and not to hinder transport from the opposite direction.

``Almost 30,000 people took to the streets. To consider this political provocation is folly. That was the people going to bury their writer,`` she said. ``The procession moved by foot from the Union of Writers [building] to the cemetery. It took four hours, the coffin being carried by hand. That was a truly people’s funeral,`` she added. Kazakova emphasized that she ``had seen with her own eyes a worthy burial of a worthy person``.

At the same time, Selin was not the only journalist who reported that the funeral turned into a form of protest meeting, in which some 50,000 people took part. Other journalists reporting from Belarus, too, confirmed that Belarusian officials had arrived at the Union of Writers before the funeral and ordered the flag on the writer’s coffin be changed. After Bykov’s widow protested, they backed off. Alexander Lukashenko did not attend the funeral.