(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned Information Minister Vladimir Rusakevich’s three-month suspension of the independent weekly “Novaya Gazeta Smorgoni” in Smorgon, western Belarus. “It is unacceptable for the independent media to be silenced on the eve of elections that are of major importance to the country,” RSF said in a letter to the minister. “Everything points […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned Information Minister Vladimir Rusakevich’s three-month suspension of the independent weekly “Novaya Gazeta Smorgoni” in Smorgon, western Belarus.
“It is unacceptable for the independent media to be silenced on the eve of elections that are of major importance to the country,” RSF said in a letter to the minister.
“Everything points to the fact that ‘Novaya Gazeta Smorgoni’ is a victim of administrative harassment. We call on you to reconsider your decision to suspend this newspaper and to refrain from similar steps against other media during the pre-election period,” the organisation added.
The information minister, who ordered the paper’s suspension on 16 August 2004, has accused its founder, Ramuald Ulan, of failing to comply with registration procedures.
Ulan, along with several other independent judicial experts, has contested the legal basis for the ruling, highlighting contradictions in the media law concerning the possibility of being both sole proprietor and editor of a newspaper.
“Novaya Gazeta Smorgoni” has come under pressure from authorities for several years. In the run-up to the local elections in 2003, a Grodno commercial tribunal suspended Ulan’s business licence, forcing the newspaper to close (see IFEX alert of 6 February 2003).
The weekly has been carrying regular news about independent candidates for the Smorgon region ahead of the October 2004 legislative elections.
Elsewhere, the independent newspapers “Belorussky Rynok”, “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” (BDG), “Belorusskaya Gazeta” and “Narodnaya Volya” said on 23 August that seven major stores in Minsk have stopped selling their papers without any advance notice.
“Belorusskaya Gazeta” editor Viktor Bondarenko and his BDG colleagues, quoted by the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ), said that local authorities had apparently “recommended” to the owners of the major stores that they should not sell the newspapers in the pre-election period. According to BDG, advertisers had reportedly come under similar pressure.
