(RSF/IFEX) – RSF and the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ) have voiced outrage over the expulsion of Ukrainian freelance journalist Mikhail Podoliak on 21 June 2004. Podoliak was deported for allegedly trying to “destabilise” Belarus in articles critical of President Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime. Members of the security service (KGB) burst into Podoliak’s home on […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF and the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ) have voiced outrage over the expulsion of Ukrainian freelance journalist Mikhail Podoliak on 21 June 2004. Podoliak was deported for allegedly trying to “destabilise” Belarus in articles critical of President Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime.
Members of the security service (KGB) burst into Podoliak’s home on 21 June at 7:00 a.m. (local time) with an expulsion order and gave him 15 minutes to gather some personal belongings. He was then bundled into a train with several KGB agents and taken to the Ukrainian border. He has been banned from visiting Belarus for the next five years.
“This utterly arbitrary measure harks back to the grim practices of the Stalinist era,” RSF and BAJ said. “We are alarmed at the steady deterioration in respect for press freedoms in Belarus, where independent journalists are systematically harassed, especially by the KGB,” the organisations added.
Podoliak was a regular contributor to the weekly “Vremia” and was well-known for his analytical and investigative articles, especially concerning relations between Belarus and Russia and about President Lukashenko’s associates.
The KGB said Podoliak was expelled because “the materials published in the newspaper contained libellous fabrications about the state of affairs in the country and appeals to destabilise the political situation in Belarus.”
Two journalists with the Russian television station NTV were expelled as “undesirables” in 1997 and 2003. On 2 August 2003, Podoliak was fined 7,300 euros (approx. US$8,800) for allegedly defaming Committee of State Control Chairman Anatoly Tozik.
