(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed its concern over administrative obstacles that have been threatening Radio Free Europe’s Belarusian service since the beginning of August 2002. “There is too little foreign media in Belarus. It would harm the Belarusian population to be deprived of an alternative source of information to public channels, such as Radio Free […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed its concern over administrative obstacles that have been threatening Radio Free Europe’s Belarusian service since the beginning of August 2002.
“There is too little foreign media in Belarus. It would harm the Belarusian population to be deprived of an alternative source of information to public channels, such as Radio Free Europe,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard noted in a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Mikhaïl Khvostov. “We ask you to award credentials to all Radio Free Europe journalists who wish to have them, and not to obstruct the relocation of editorial staff. Unless this is done, we must conclude that your government is trying by all possible means to evict Radio Free Europe from the country,” Ménard added.
According to RSF’s information, the authorities have been putting pressure on Radio Free Europe since the beginning of August. In a 1 August letter, the Foreign Affairs Ministry threatened to cancel the credentials of all journalists working for Radio Free Europe’s Belarusian service if the station went ahead with broadcasts of news reports prepared by unaccredited journalists. Of the 21 Radio Free Europe journalists assigned to the station’s Belarusian service, 11 are not accredited. Ministry officials have refused to meet with the head of the station’s Belarusian service, Mr. Lukaschuk, to discuss the matter. Furthermore, unplanned renovation work has begun on the buildings rented by the radio station in Minsk, forcing most of the station’s journalists to work temporarily in borrowed premises, and forcing the station to find new offices.
A few weeks earlier, the radio station broadcast programmes in which several heads of literary publications who had earlier been dismissed by President Aleksandr Lukashenko were featured as guests.
