Attacks on the Press 2004: Belarus
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko strangled the country’s independent and opposition media in the months before deeply flawed October elections that returned his supporters to Parliament. The obedient state media flooded the capital, Minsk, and the countryside with pro-Lukashenko propaganda, vilifying opposition leaders and urging voters to support the president or face Western domination and political…
Journalist killed in her apartment
New York, October 21, 2004—Well-known Belarusian journalist Veronika Cherkasova was killed in her apartment in the capital, Minsk, yesterday. Her body, which had multiple stab wounds, was found last night, according to local and international reports. Cherkasova, 44, had reported for the Minsk-based opposition newspaper Solidarnost since May 2003. Previously, she worked for the independent…
Mother of missing journalist requests new investigation of the case
New York, August 5, 2004—Two weeks after the Belarusian president said he had information and documents about the investigation into a 29-year-old cameraman’s disappearance, the journalist’s mother is demanding a renewed inquiry. Olga Zavadskaya, whose son Dmitry is presumed dead after vanishing four years ago, told CPJ in an interview today that she filed a…
CPJ condemns deportation of independent journalist
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s deportation of Mikhail Podolyak, a Ukrainian journalist, by the Belarusian security service (KGB). Early yesterday morning, agents forced Podolyak out of his home in the capital of Minsk and put him on a train to Odessa, Ukraine, according to local and international reports.
Council of Europe calls for sanctions against Belarus
New York, April 30, 2004—The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is based in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday passed a resolution seeking sanctions against the authoritarian government of Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko for failing to properly investigate a series of abductions, including the July 2000 abduction of journalist Dmitry Zavadsky. PACE called…
Prosecutors close investigation into journalists abduction
New York, April 19, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has learned that prosecutors in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, have suspended their criminal inquiry into the July 7, 2000, abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky, a 29-year-old cameraman for the Russian public television network ORT, who disappeared in July 2000. Ivan Branchel, deputy head of the prosecutor’s organized…
Attacks on the Press 2003: Belarus
Squeezed by the expansion of NATO and the European Union to the west and tepid relations with Russia to the east, Belarus grew ever more isolated. In the face of that isolation, President Aleksandr Lukashenko continued his assault on the media in 2003, tightening his grip on the impoverished country. Local analysts suspect that Lukashenko’s…
Court declares missing journalist dead
New York, December 2, 2003—Last week, a district court in the Belarus’ capital, Minsk, declared journalist Dmitry Zavadsky officially dead. Zavadsky, a 29-year-old cameraman for the Russian public television network ORT, disappeared in July 2000. According to local press reports, the cameraman’s widow, Svetlana Zavadskaya, initiated the judicial process in October 2003. Zavadsky’s body was…