(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a crackdown against Belarus’s top-selling independent newspaper, “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”. The Belarus postal service, Belpochta, which delivers newspapers to subscribers country-wide, and state distributor Belsayuzdruk both cancelled their 2004 contracts with the newspaper. In addition, Irina Makovetskaya, the paper’s correspondent in Gomel, southern Belarus, received several death threats in anonymous […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a crackdown against Belarus’s top-selling independent newspaper, “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”. The Belarus postal service, Belpochta, which delivers newspapers to subscribers country-wide, and state distributor Belsayuzdruk both cancelled their 2004 contracts with the newspaper. In addition, Irina Makovetskaya, the paper’s correspondent in Gomel, southern Belarus, received several death threats in anonymous telephone calls during the night of 10 to 11 January.
Given that the authorities did everything possible to obstruct “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” throughout 2003, the two state companies’ refusal to work with the newspaper cannot possibly be coincidental, RSF said. The organisation is also worried about the anonymous phone calls to Makovetskaya, in which the caller threatened to “bury” her and accused her of “disliking” the Belarusian people and President Alexander Lukashenko. RSF warned that it would hold the authorities responsible should anything happen to the journalist.
In a 28 December letter, Belpochta said it would not renew its contract with “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” on the grounds that the paper was only published sporadically in 2003. In fact, the authorities suspended “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” for three months in May over an article deemed offensive to President Lukashenko (see IFEX alerts of 26 and 2 June and 30 May 2003). The paper subsequently encountered difficulties in resuming publication. “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” has been printed in Smolensk, Russia, since September. The Belarusian state distributor Belsayuzdruk, which has a virtual monopoly, has refused to distribute the paper in Minsk, Brest and Vitsebsk since 9 January. In response to the moves, the newspaper is expected to file an official complaint against both Belpochta and Belsayuzdruk.
In another incident, an anonymous caller telephoned Makovetskaya at her home several times during the night of 10 to 11 January, introducing himself as a “representative of the Belarusian people.” He told the journalist that “despite her efforts,” President Lukashenko would be re-elected for a third term, and said “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” would fold within a few days. The caller also disparaged Makovetskaya over articles about Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky and about a winery that has alleged links with the KGB and is turning over huge sums of money. Makovetskaya said the unidentified caller was very well informed about her contacts with an investigator connected with a defamation allegation made against her in 2002 by Minsk Prosecutor Vyacheslav Terekhovich, leading her to conclude that the caller may be working for the authorities.
