International League For Human Rights Supports BDG :: Charter'97 :: News

The International League for Human Rights, an international non-governmental organization with special consultative status at UN ECOSOC, addressed an open letter to A. Lukashenka, expressing its concern about the latest blow to independent media and free speech in Belarus. THe human rights advocates are in particular concerned after Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta (BDG), a popular Minsk-based daily, lost an important battle in court.

According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, on February 19, the Belarusian Supreme Economic Court upheld the December 26 warning issued by the Information Ministry to BDG, reported the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ). The warnings were in response to three investigative articles by Syarhei Satsuk published in the paper’s fall 2003 issues. According to the Ministry, the articles were based on false information in violation of Article 32 of the Press Law. The newspaper maintains that Syarhei Satsuk obtained all the disputed information from his confidential sources in the State Security Committee (KGB) and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

This is another attack on the newspaper which already faces several other warnings. On February 10, the newspaper lost an appeal of a December 2003 warning for an article by Satsuk published that summer. Under the Press Law, two such warnings issued within one year allow the authorities to shut down a newspaper.

The League believes that BDG’s recent setback in court is a continuation of the targeted attempts by state authorities to shut down the publication through trumped-up libel charges, exorbitant fines, and financial discrimination. It is no coincidence that earlier this month two state companies, the Belarusian postal service and Belsayuzdruk, a distributor, canceled their 2004 contracts with the newspaper, further hampering the paper’s operations and severely restricting its circulation. The League calls on you to end your wholesale assault on independent media and ensure that journalists at BDG, and elsewhere, can operate freely without fear of threats or reprisals from government authorities.