Belarus President Lukashenko Orders Foreign Music off Radio :: Charter'97 :: News

The Belarus Ministry of Information has ordered the amount of foreign music broadcast by Belarus radio stations to be reduced, Russia’s NTV television reported. From now on, only two out of every 10 songs played on Belarus radio can be foreign. The country’s Information Minister Uladzimir Rusakevich has said that while everyone in Belarus would have an opportunity to listen to what they like; people must not be denied the opportunity to listen to Belarusian music.

The minister also said that under the new conditions Belarus stations could come into tough competition with foreign ones. “They will try to jam and suppress us. Not because we are broadcasting Belarusian material, but because we have different political goals,” the official said.

The Russian newspaper Gazeta has linked the move of the Information Ministry with a suggestion voiced by the Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko at a festival in Vitebsk late last year.

“In the evening when all our people are driving their cars and listening to the radio, the stations must broadcast our product, from our people,” the president said.