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Domestic independent alternatives to state television and radio, which are rigidly controlled, no longer carry news programs for fear of punitive inspections and fines. The government rigorously enforced legislation that unduly restricts freedom of speech, closing outright one independent newspaper and threatening to close another. Accordingly, the independent print media has become a vital, yet diminishing resource for Belarusian citizens who seek an alternative viewpoint to that prescribed by the government, while the Russian television networks that are received in Belarus, such as ORT, NTV and RTR, 66 have become the sole source of alternative television news coverage in the country.

Despite the Russian television networks' relative stature, this has not prevented their correspondents from being subjected to harassment, censure, denial of accreditation, and expulsion. The Internet remains the sole source of information generally unhindered by the authorities, despite one recorded case of suspicious interference with an independent news web site during the November referendum.

However, unofficial estimates suggest that only a few thousand citizens in Belarus have access to the Internet. The government continues to attack fundamental rights to freedom of expression in the print media through a two-pronged strategy: first, by issuing warnings to newspapers following the publication of an article critical of the government or calling for civic protest, 69 and second, by depriving the print media of virtually any official information pertaining to the government. Journalists and observers had long believed the Belarusian government was wilfully withholding important unclassified information from the media.

This perception was confirmed of April 7, , when a memorandum, marked "for official use," was leaked to the press in Minsk. The memorandum, entitled "On Strengthening Countermeasures [Against] Articles in the Opposition Press," outlined three main points of action to counter anti-government media coverage:.

To ban the passing of any official documents orders, decisions, resolutions etc. To inform state officials that commentary on official documents to the opposition mass-media is not permitted;. To forbid state establishments and enterprises to place advertisements in opposition newspapers [as these] are a major source of income for these newspapers.

The memorandum was undated and signed by B. Citizens of the Republic of Belarus shall be guaranteed the right to receive, store and disseminate complete, reliable and timely information on the activities of state bodies and public associations, on political, economic and international life, and on the state of the environment. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally , in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

President Lukashenka confirmed the memorandum's authenticity on May 5 in a speech addressing a C. Belapan news agency reported that the president had said the letter's author should have given the directives orally and not in written form. He reportedly then added that the instruction " Although the memorandum has no legal force, government agencies apparently comply with it. Moreover, information to independent media outlets had been informally banned prior to the memorandum. Two months beforememorandum was leaked, Ales' Lipau, director of the Minsk-based Belapan news agency described how the informal ban worked:.

In principle, it happens all the time This happens every week, at any kind of official occasion, especially when the president is taking part.

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In "Crushing Civil Society," Human Rights Watch had criticized earlier drafts of these amendments because they grant authority to ban and censor independent media reporting that is critical of the government, or that exposes vaguely defined state "secrets" or material that could harm the state's political, economic, or security interests or the health and morality of its citizens. In particular, provisions punishing publications that "insult the honor and dignity" of government officials are open to use against those who put forward legitimate criticism of state officials that is fully protected political comment and opinion under international human rights law, including Article 19 of the ICCPR.

The amendments also codified a prior presidential decree restricting the import and export of information deemed to threaten "the national security, rights and freedoms of individuals, health and morals of the population and environmental protection. The law provides as amended for administrative prosecution of all distributors of a newspaper found to have violated these vague standards, the banning of such publications, and suspension of an individual's right to engage in media activities should he violate the law.

The alterations to the draft amendments were of a minor nature that did not mitigate its potential for silencing all critical reportage. Warnings have been handed down to newspapers perceived by the state to be violating this law, even before the amendments were adopted. Svaboda , an independent daily newspaper, had the dubious honor being the first independent newspaper to be closed under the Law on the Press and Other Mass Media. One of these warnings stemmed from a article criticizing judges who presided over trials, conducted in prison, of individuals arrested at demonstrations.

The article was deemed to "discredit the Belarusian judicial system and insult the honor and dignity of the judges.

The November 19 warnings relate to two articles published in Svaboda earlier in November. One article, entitled "Impeachment — The Second Attempt," drew parallels between Belarus today and ; the other, entitled "Belarus — Remembrance Day," accused the president of incompetence and criminal activity.

In accordance with the Law on the Press, publications that receive "multiple" warnings are in danger of closure. In this instance, the Higher Economic Court ruled Svaboda to be in breach of Article 5 of the law and annulled its registration, thereby closing the newspaper. The two articles, and the three articles which previously drew warnings, were within the internationally accepted boundaries of free speech. The Law on the Press leaves unclear what, if any, recourse exists to appeal a court decision closing a media outlet.

Previously, newspapers that received warnings were not subsequently closed. The closure of Svaboda culminated a systematic government-sponsored campaign to silence criticism of the president and of the government. Human Rights Watch has documented other methods — short of closure — employed by the Belarusian government to attack and silence the independent media. With specific regard to Svaboda , in these included: a huge fine at the end of U. Snegir after the publication of a series of satirical photo-collages that featured President Lukashenka.

The collages variously featured the head of the president along with the heads of other Belarusian and Russian government officials, including Russian President Boris Yeltsin, superimposed on the bodies of other persons, and political captions. The warning stated that the collages were of "an insulting character to the president," that they expressed the "obvious aim of the political and personal discreditation of the state leaders" and that they represented the president "in a manner not in accordance with genuine reality that degrades the honor and dignity of his person and a political figure of his scale.

Since November , Imya was forced, through the cancellation of its contract with a Gomel printing house, to print in neighboring Lithuania. As of February , Imya has resumed printing in Minsk at the private "Magic" printing press. Imya has also resumed distribution via the state postal distribution company, Soyuzpechat, which had also been suspended in November However, Soyuzpechat will only take 2, copies for state distribution through kiosks, claiming, according to Imya editor, Irina Khalip, that there is no demand for more copies, Yet, as Khalip told Human Rights Watch, the message from the newspaper vendors themselves suggests otherwise:.

I spoke with the vendors in the kiosks and they complained, they said that they are given five copies and that they don't even display those copies on the counter Twice in , the Belarus authorities revoked the accreditation of journalists employed by NVT and ORT 78 to censure them for their critical reports. The specter of stripping Russian journalists of their accreditation rose again on March 13, when foreign minister Ivan Antanovich accused parts of the Russian media of "misinformation, fabrications, and libel" against President Lukashenka. Antanovich reportedly stated that there had been "a wave of innuendoes, inventions, and fabrications" against the president, and threatened to strip journalists from these media outlets of their accreditation if these stories continued.

Antanovich's statement was apparently linked to widely reported comments by Belarusian businessman Aleksandr Pupeyko — who had just received political asylum in Poland — claiming that he had documentary evidence that President Lukashenka held large sums of money in foreign bank accounts. This followed the removal of his special events accreditation on July 2.

This loss of accreditation in practice meant that Sheremet, a Belarus citizen, was no longer granted a press pass to official press conferences or allowed access to the Minsk television center, the only facility in Belarus from which video materials can be transmitted abroad. Unconfirmed reports state that Sheremet was in fact granted permission to film in the border region, but only in September of that year. Sheremet, his cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky and driver Yaroslav Ovchinnikov set off on July 22 to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, not far from the border town of Oshmyany.

The guards fined the television crew for violating the border zone entrance regulations and then released them. On July 23, the ORT television news program Vremya Time , featured a piece on smuggling along the Belarus-Lithuanian border, which included footage from Sheremet's trip. On July 30, Sheremet and Zavadsky were charged under Article 80 of the criminal code — premeditated violation of the border by a group — which carries a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment. Ovchinnikov was freed on August 6 without charge, while Zavadsky was held until September 4.

The letter reportedly contained a plea asking for mercy, a "confession" that his actions were not conducive to friendly relations between Belarus and Russia, and a request that he be allowed to leave prison pending trial. Meanwhile, on August 15, a film crew comprised of four ORT journalists — three Russian citizens Anatoly Adamchuk, Aleksandr Oganov and Valeriy Astashkin and Belarusian citizen Uladzimir Kostin — traveled to the Oshmyany district in order to show that the demarcation of the border between Belarus and Lithuania is unclear and that it is poorly guarded.

While their identity was being established, the border guards placed them in the custody of the Interior Ministry. The film crew were fined , rubles each; however, the Interior Ministry detained the crew again on August 16 and the procuracy on August 18 charged them under Article 15 2 and Article 80 2 of the Belarusian criminal code with "attempted border violations.

In a televised statement on August 19 made while he was still in custody, Adamchuk "confessed" to a premeditated attempt to "violate the border," which he said he had carried out, under threat of dismissal from hissuperiors at ORT, and entreated the authorities "not to expel me from the republic However, on September 24, Foshenko returned to work in Belarus as an ORT correspondent, reportedly after having reached an agreement with President Lukashenka.

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Pavel Sheremet and Dmitri Zavadsky were tried for violations of Article 17 of the criminal code conspiring with a group of people to commit a crime and Article 80 premeditated violation of the border by a group. Sheremet was additionally charged under Article — exceeding his authority as a journalist resulting in damage to the public interest. He was released on October 8 on his own recognizance, pending trial.

The trial began on December 17, in the border town of Oshmyany. The choice of location for the trial, which had generated enormous interest in Belarus and Russia and had prompted the personal intervention of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, greatly limited coverage. First, the court room itself was clearly too small to hold all the interested parties, prompting the defense to apply, without success, to have the hearing moved to more spacious premises.

Reassessing Lukashenka

On January 28, , the court pronounced Sheremet and Zavadsky guilty as charged and sentenced them to two and one and a half years of imprisonment respectively, suspended for one year. The state chose to prosecute Sheremet and Zavadsky apparently because of the role they played in exposing the lack border demarcation, 93 a subject of official sensitivity. This notion is supported by the timing of their arrest: whereas they were merely fined when caught in the border area, they were arrested and charged only after their film clips aired on television. Human Rights Watch further believes that the prior public accusations by the government of bias in Sheremet's reporting and the stripping of his accreditation, also indicate the political nature of the case.

This is undoubtedly an outstanding date, even though the history of both the state security bodies and our Motherland has a lot of bright and sad periods. I do not want to mention difficult moments on this holiday; one would like to erase them from memory, but we should remember them in order to not repeat terrible mistakes.

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Under Lukashenka's presidency, a number of journalists, members of non-governmental organizations and those connected with the opposition have been beaten, kidnaped, or threatened in circumstances that strongly suggest the responsibility of state security forces. These assaults were usually carried out by men in plainclothes who did not identify themselves.

Human Rights Watch is not aware of a single instance in which these assaults has resulted in a prosecution. This failure by Belarus law-enforcement agencies to bring perpetrators of such crimes to justice reinforces the perception that they are carried out by state agents operating in plainclothes with complete impunity. In addition to these attacks, an April 16, statement by KGB chief Uladzimir Matskevich announced the institution of a system of official warnings to citizens engaged in "unlawful actions.

Yury Khashchevatsky is an internationally renowned documentary film director based in Minsk and is also a board member of Charter 97, a pro-democracy movement. On the night of December 23, two unidentified men broke into Khashchevatsky's film studio and beat him unconscious, breaking his nose, his foot in three places, and causing him a concussion and multiple bruises and abrasions. No valuables or equipment were stolen or damaged, strongly indicating the intimidatory nature of the assault. In November , Khashchevatsky completed a documentary film, An Ordinary President , which is an openly critical, satirical portrait President Lukashenka.

The film drew international acclaim and, in , was awarded a prize from the Berlin Film Festival and the prestigious Russian Sakharov Prize. In Belarus, the film's reception was markedly different. On the night of January 22, , a local cable television station in the town of Karelichi, in Grodno region, broadcast the film. The local police and the State Security Committee KGB arrived at the station just as the film was ending, broke down the door, confiscated the film and detained nineteen-year-old Maksim Svyrid, the video operator at the station who had broadcast the film.

Svyrid was held until a. Although this channel is not received in Belarus, Human Rights Watch believes that there is a direct correlation between the timing of the assault and the broadcasting of the film.

In addition, Khashchevatsky's political affiliations may well have contributed to the attackers' motives, which appear overwhelmingly to have been to intimidate Khashchevatsky and deter him from future political activity or film-making. Shortly after the assault, Khashchevatsky reported the incident to the police.

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