Officials seize independent-media equipment ahead of presidential election
“[My paper] gives alternative information, and the authorities do not like that,” an editor told CPJ. New York, August 23, 2001—In an ongoing crackdown on the independent press during the run-up to the September 9 presidential elections, Belarusian government officials have seized computers and other office equipment from several publications. Some of the equipment had…
Police confiscate special edition of independent newspaper
New York, August 20, 2001—In the latest crackdown on the independent press before the September 9 presidential election, police from the State Committee for Financial Investigation seized 400,000 copies of the independent triweekly Nasha Svaboda on Friday, August 17, according to local and international sources. The special election issue, which endorsed Vladimir Goncharik, the only…
CPJ monitor denied entry
In addition to state control, CPJ has documented intimidation and direct attacks against the independent media. London, August 8, 2001—The Belarusian embassy in London has denied a visa request by Emma Gray, a UK-based consultant with the Committee to Protect Journalists who intended to monitor press conditions in Belarus in advance of the September 9…
Wife of missing cameraman calls for independent investigation
New York, July 27–The wife of missing Belarusian cameraman Dmitri Zavadsky called on the United States and the international community to establish an independent commission to investigate her husband’s disappearance and other politically motivated deaths and disappearances in Belarus. Svetlana Zavadskaya visited Washington, D.C., for four days in mid-July with a small delegation that included…
ONE YEAR LATER, NO PROGRESS ON MISSING CAMERAMAN INVESTIGATION IN BELARUS
New York, July 6, 2001 On the one-year anniversary of cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky’s disappearance in Minsk, CPJ deplores the fact that Belarusian authorities have made little or no progress investigating the case, despite credible leads that have emerged over the past year. “The absence of concrete progress leads us to suspect that Belarusian authorities…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Europe & Central Asia Analysis
POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Belarus
PRIOR TO THE OCTOBER 15 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS, President Aleksandr Lukashenko cracked down on political dissent in Belarus, including the independent media. Lukashenko, who refused to step down when his term expired in 1999, was expected to maintain his repressive ways in 2001, when the country faces presidential elections. Three months before the election, opposition parties…
Attacks on the Press in 2000: Journalists in Prison
EIGHTY-ONE JOURNALISTS WERE IN PRISON AROUND THE WORLD at the end of 2000, jailed for practicing their profession. The number is down slightly from the previous year, when 87 were in jail, and represents a significant decline from 1998, when 118 journalists were imprisoned. While jailing journalists can be an effective means of stifling bad…
Belarus: Missing journalist feared dead; official investigation stalled
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the lack of progress in the investigation into the disappearance of Dmitry Zavadsky, a cameraman with the Russian public television network ORT who has been missing since July 7. Because no group has come forward to take responsibility for Zavadsky’s disappearance over the past six months, we now fear that the journalist may have been killed. The official investigation, which has been carried out in secret, now appears to be stalled.