(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 14 May 2001 RSF press release: BELARUS Where is Dmitri Zavadski? In a letter to President Alexander Lukashenko, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) asked that light be shed on the disappearance of cameraman Dmitri Zavadski. “What happened to Dmitri Zavadski, is he alive or dead? Why is it that we […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 14 May 2001 RSF press release:
BELARUS
Where is Dmitri Zavadski?
In a letter to President Alexander Lukashenko, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) asked that light be shed on the disappearance of cameraman Dmitri Zavadski. “What happened to Dmitri Zavadski, is he alive or dead? Why is it that we seemingly know so much about his kidnappers but so little on the cameraman’s fate?” asked Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “We ask that you make public all the facts which can provide answers to these questions,” he added.
On 11 May 2001, the Belarusian authorities announced that they had arrested several members of a gang suspected of having kidnapped Dmitri Zavadski, cameraman for the Russian public television station ORT, on 7 July 2000. The suspects, who are current and former Interior Ministry agents, carried out the abduction for the Russian far-right movement UNR (Russian National Unity), according to the authorities. They have been arrested and charged. President Lukashenko stated before the 15 October 2000 legislative elections that he would do everything possible to ensure that Dmitri Zavadski was found. Ever since the kidnapping, some of the journalist’s colleagues have accused the Belarusian secret services of being behind Dmitri Zavadski’s disappearance.
On 7 July 2000, the cameraman disappeared at the Minsk airport. He had gone there to greet one of the Russian ORT station’s directors, Pavel Cheremet, upon the arrival of his flight. His vehicle was found in the airport parking lot. Dmitri Zavadski had left state television in 1996 to work for ORT, against the Belarusian authorities’ wishes. A former personal cameraman to the president, the journalist was imprisoned for two months in 1997, with an ORT colleague, following a report on the weakness of Belarusian security arrangements along the border with Lithuania.
