(WAN/IFEX) – In a 30 September 2003 letter to Belarusian President Alyaksander Lukashenko, WAN and the World Editors Forum expressed serious concern over the closure of the independent newspaper “Mestnoye Vremya Press”. According to reports, on 23 September a Minsk court ordered the “Mestnoye Vremya Press” daily and its publisher to cease their activities, following […]
(WAN/IFEX) – In a 30 September 2003 letter to Belarusian President Alyaksander Lukashenko, WAN and the World Editors Forum expressed serious concern over the closure of the independent newspaper “Mestnoye Vremya Press”.
According to reports, on 23 September a Minsk court ordered the “Mestnoye Vremya Press” daily and its publisher to cease their activities, following a complaint from the Tax Ministry, which claimed that the paper had failed to notify them of a change in its legal address. Officials had been trying to close down the newspaper for almost a year.
WAN and the World Editors Forum are concerned that the closure of “Mestnoye Vremya Press” was a politically motivated decision and the latest in a series of moves by the authorities to silence media outlets that are critical of the government. Five independent newspapers and four major non-governmental organisations have recently been closed (see IFEX alerts of 19 September, 11 and 10 July, 26, 9 and 2 June, 30 and 27 May and 6 February 2003).
