The independent media in Belarus operate in the face of a concerted government campaign that has sought to control their content, distribution, and personnel. The government's informal information blockade against the independent media emerged as a policy in a confidential government memorandum leaked to the press in April. Domestic independent alternatives to state television and radio, which are rigidly controlled, no longer carry news programs for fear of punitive inspections and fines. The government rigorously enforced legislation that unduly restricts freedom of speech, closing outright one independent newspaper and threatening to close another. State-owned newspapers' content is also tightly controlled, with recalcitrant editors facing dismissal.65

Accordingly, the independent print media has become a vital, yet diminishing resource for Belarusian citizens who seek an alternative viewpoint to that prescribed by the government, while the Russian television networks that are received in Belarus, such as ORT, NTV and RTR,66 have become the sole source of alternative television news coverage in the country. Despite the Russian television networks' relative stature, this has not prevented their correspondents from being subjected to harassment, censure, denial of accreditation, and expulsion.67 Independent Belarusian radio, such as Radio Roks, feature only brief, strictly neutral and non-controversial news bulletins in order to avoid harassment or closure. The Internet remains the sole source of information generally unhindered by the authorities, despite one recorded case of suspicious interference with an independent news web site during the November 1996 referendum.68 Indeed, the newspaper Svaboda freely used its web site to continue publication after the government banned it in print (see below). However, unofficial estimates suggest that only a few thousand citizens in Belarus have access to the Internet.

The government continues to attack fundamental rights to freedom of expression in the print media through a two-pronged strategy: first, by issuing warnings to newspapers following the publication of an article critical of the government or calling for civic protest,69 and second, by depriving the print media of virtually any official information pertaining to the government. Journalists and observers had long believed the Belarusian government was wilfully withholding important unclassified information from the media. This perception was confirmed of April 7, 1998, when a memorandum, marked "for official use," was leaked to the press in Minsk. The memorandum, entitled "On Strengthening Countermeasures [Against] Articles in the Opposition Press," outlined three main points of action to counter anti-government media coverage:

· To inform state officials that commentary on official documents to the opposition mass-media is not permitted;

· To forbid state establishments and enterprises to place advertisements in opposition newspapers [as these] are a major source of income for these newspapers.70

The memorandum was undated and signed by B. N. Bolozhinski, the Chief Advisor to the Social and Cultural Policy Department of the Presidential Administration, and made reference to a March 17, 1998 letter from President Lukashenka and a "Presidential Order on the Need to Strengthen Countermeasures against Articles in the Opposition Press." Points 1 and 2 of the memorandum clearly violate Article 34 of the Belarusian constitution, which states:

Citizens of the Republic of Belarus shall be guaranteed the right to receive, store and disseminate complete, reliable and timely information on the activities of state bodies and public associations, on political, economic and international life, and on the state of the environment.

Similarly, points 1 and 2 violate Article 19 (2) of the ICCPR, which reads:

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally , in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

President Lukashenka confirmed the memorandum's authenticity on May 5 in a speech addressing a C.I.S. journalist's forum. Belapan news agency reported that the president had said the letter's author should have given the directives orally and not in written form. He reportedly then added that the instruction "...was done rudely: it was correct in content but rude in form."71

Although the memorandum has no legal force, government agencies apparently comply with it. Moreover, information to independent media outlets had been informally banned prior to the memorandum. Two months beforememorandum was leaked, Ales' Lipau, director of the Minsk-based Belapan news agency described how the informal ban worked:

On December 20, the Council of the Republic adopted amendments to the Law on the Press and Other Mass Media with minor alterations. In "Crushing Civil Society," Human Rights Watch had criticized earlier drafts of these amendments because they grant authority to ban and censor independent media reporting that is critical of the government, or that exposes vaguely defined state "secrets" or material that could harm the state's political, economic, or security interests or the health and morality of its citizens. In particular, provisions punishing publications that "insult the honor and dignity" of government officials are open to use against those who put forward legitimate criticism of state officials that is fully protected political comment and opinion under international human rights law, including Article 19 of the ICCPR. The amendments also codified a prior presidential decree restricting the import and export of information deemed to threaten "the national security, rights and freedoms of individuals, health and morals of the population and environmental protection." Such sweeping power to restrict information also runs contrary to Article 19(2) of the ICCPR and Article 34(1) of the Belarusian constitution. The law provides as amended for administrative prosecution of all distributors of a newspaper found to have violated these vague standards, the banning of such publications, and suspension of an individual's right to engage in media activities should he violate the law. The alterations to the draft amendments were of a minor nature that did not mitigate its potential for silencing all critical reportage.73

Warnings have been handed down to newspapers perceived by the state to be violating this law, even before the amendments were adopted. The ban importing `harmful' information has been enforced against a variety of different publications, including in, 1996, the newspaper Svaboda (Freedom), and in April 1997, against Belarusskaya Molodezhnaya (Belarusian Youth).74 In yet another enforcement of this restriction, on May 2, 1998, Belarusian authorities confiscated 900 copies of the Belarusskaya Vedemosti (Belarusian News, which is published in Poland), along with several hundred copies of political articles, at the Belarus-Ukraine border because of their political content. from Acting BPF Chair Levon Barshchevsky and his Deputy Sergei Papkov.75

Svaboda, an independent daily newspaper, had the dubious honor being the first independent newspaper to be closed under the Law on the Press and Other Mass Media.76 On November 19, 1997, Svaboda received two warnings from the State Committee on the Press that it was in violation of Article 5 of the Law on the Press for inciting "social intolerance" and "hostility between society and the authorities." In the past two years, Svaboda had received more than ten warnings for publishing controversial articles. One of these warnings stemmed from a 1996 article criticizing judges who presided over trials, conducted in prison, of individuals arrested at demonstrations. The article was deemed to "discredit the Belarusian judicial system and insult the honor and dignity of the judges." Two articles published in 1997 allegedly "disclosed secrets" of two criminal investigations: the first related to the arrest on embezzlement charges of Tamara Vinnikova, head of the Belarusian Central Bank; the second covered a gas pipeline explosion with which the so-called Belarusian Liberation Army has been linked.

The November 19 warnings relate to two articles published in Svaboda earlier in November. One article, entitled "Impeachment - The Second Attempt," drew parallels between Belarus today and 1937; the other, entitled "Belarus - Remembrance Day," accused the president of incompetence and criminal activity. In accordance with the Law on the Press, publications that receive "multiple" warnings are in danger of closure. In this instance, the Higher Economic Court ruled Svaboda to be in breach of Article 5 of the law and annulled its registration, thereby closing the newspaper. The two articles, and the three articles which previously drew warnings, were within the internationally accepted boundaries of free speech. Further, the closure of Svaboda for the expression of such opinions constitutes a clear violation of domestic and international instruments, such as Articles 33 (3) and 34 (1) of the Constitution of Belarus, Article 3 of the Law on the Press and other Mass Media, Article 8 of the Russia-Belarus Union Charter, and Article 19 of the ICCPR.

The Law on the Press leaves unclear what, if any, recourse exists to appeal a court decision closing a media outlet. Previously, newspapers that received warnings were not subsequently closed.

The closure of Svaboda culminated a systematic government-sponsored campaign to silence criticism of the president and of the government. Human Rights Watch has documented other methods - short of closure - employed by the Belarusian government to attack and silence the independent media. With specific regard to Svaboda, in 1996 these included: a huge fine at the end of 1996 (U.S.$3,000) for non-payment of taxes on copies of the newspaper that had been distributed free of charge; an attempt to evict Svaboda from its premises by raising the rent for their offices threefold; forcing Svaboda to print in neighboring Lithuania temporarily; and periodic bans on the newspaper's distribution.

On November 11, 1997, Imya (The Name), an independent weekly newspaper, received an official warning from Deputy General Procurator M.V. Snegir after the publication of a series of satirical photo-collages that featured President Lukashenka. The collages variously featured the head of the president along with the heads of other Belarusian and Russian government officials, including Russian President Boris Yeltsin, superimposed on the bodies of other persons, and political captions. The warning stated that the collages were of "an insulting character to the president," that they expressed the "obvious aim of the political and personal discreditation of the state leaders" and that they represented the president "in a manner not in accordance with genuine reality that degrades the honor and dignity of his person and a political figure of his scale."

Since November 1995, Imya was forced, through the cancellation of its contract with a Gomel printing house, to print in neighboring Lithuania. As of February 1998, Imya has resumed printing in Minsk at the private "Magic" printing press. Imya has also resumed distribution via the state postal distribution company, Soyuzpechat, which had also been suspended in November 1995. However, Soyuzpechat will only take 2,000 copies for state distribution through kiosks, claiming, according to Imya editor, Irina Khalip, that there is no demand for more copies, Yet, as Khalip told Human Rights Watch, the message from the newspaper vendors themselves suggests otherwise:

Twice in 1997, the Belarus authorities revoked the accreditation of journalists employed by NVT and ORT78 to censure them for their critical reports. The specter of stripping Russian journalists of their accreditation rose again on March 13, 1998 when foreign minister Ivan Antanovich accused parts of the Russian media of "misinformation, fabrications, and libel" against President Lukashenka. Antanovich reportedly stated that there had been "a wave of innuendoes, inventions, and fabrications" against the president, and threatened to strip journalists from these media outlets of their accreditation if these stories continued. Antanovich's statement was apparently linked to widely reported comments by Belarusian businessman Aleksandr Pupeyko - who had just received political asylum in Poland - claiming that he had documentary evidence that President Lukashenka held large sums of money in foreign bank accounts.79

On July 7, 1997, Minsk ORT bureau chief Pavel Sheremet was stripped of his accreditation as a journalist in Belarus. This followed the removal of his special events accreditation on July 2.80 The Belarus Foreign Ministry made the following statement:

This loss of accreditation in practice meant that Sheremet, a Belarus citizen, was no longer granted a press pass to official press conferences or allowed access to the Minsk television center, the only facility in Belarus from which video materials can be transmitted abroad.82 However, he was still able to work for ORT and it was in this capacity that heapplied to the authorities on July 18, 1997 for permission to film a piece on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. Unconfirmed reports state that Sheremet was in fact granted permission to film in the border region, but only in September of that year. Sheremet, his cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky and driver Yaroslav Ovchinnikov set off on July 22 to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, not far from the border town of Oshmyany.83 There they filmed on and around the border zone and were detained by Belarusian border guards at the Kammeny Log crossing point. The guards fined the television crew for violating the border zone entrance regulations and then released them. On July 23, the ORT television news program Vremya (Time), featured a piece on smuggling along the Belarus-Lithuanian border, which included footage from Sheremet's trip. On July 26, Sheremet, Zavadsky, and Ovchinnikov were detained in Minsk and on July 28 were transferred to a KGB detention facility in Grodno region. On July 30, Sheremet and Zavadsky were charged under Article 80 of the criminal code - premeditated violation of the border by a group - which carries a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment.84 The following day, Interfax reported that President Lukashenka alleged that Sheremet "has received remuneration from foreign special services."85

Ovchinnikov was freed on August 6 without charge, while Zavadsky was held until September 4. That day, the Belarusian KGB published a letter that, it claimed, Zavadsky wrote from prison to President Lukashenka. The letter reportedly contained a plea asking for mercy, a "confession" that his actions were not conducive to friendly relations between Belarus and Russia, and a request that he be allowed to leave prison pending trial.86 However, on September 5, Zavadsky reportedly stated in an interview with journalists in Grodno that the text of the letter he wrote and that which was published "significantly differed." Zavadsky added that "rather than asking for mercy, I requested my release from custody."87 Sheremet was finally released on October 8.

Meanwhile, on August 15, a film crew comprised of four ORT journalists - three Russian citizens (Anatoly Adamchuk, Aleksandr Oganov and Valeriy Astashkin) and Belarusian citizen Uladzimir Kostin - traveled to the Oshmyany district in order to show that the demarcation of the border between Belarus and Lithuania is unclear and that it is poorly guarded.88 Before reaching the border, however, the Belarusian State Border Guards detained them, allegedly for being in a border zone without the correct identifying documentation. While their identity was being established, the border guards placed them in the custody of the Interior Ministry. The film crew were fined 450,000 rubles each; however, the Interior Ministry detained the crew again on August 16 and the procuracy on August 18 charged them under Article 15 (2) and Article 80 (2) of the Belarusian criminal code with "attempted border violations."

In a televised statement on August 19 made while he was still in custody, Adamchuk "confessed" to a premeditated attempt to "violate the border," which he said he had carried out, under threat of dismissal from hissuperiors at ORT, and entreated the authorities "not to expel me from the republic...but let me work in Belarus to make amends for my evil deeds."89

Authorities released Adamchuk, Ostashkin, and Oganov on August 22, while Kostin was released on August 25. On August 18, Belarusian authorities forcibly took ORT journalist Vladimir Foshenko to the town of Lida for questioning.90 He was reportedly held incommunicado in a hotel until August 22, whereupon authorities deported him to Russia. However, on September 24, Foshenko returned to work in Belarus as an ORT correspondent, reportedly after having reached an agreement with President Lukashenka.91

Pavel Sheremet and Dmitri Zavadsky were tried for violations of Article 17 of the criminal code (conspiring with a group of people to commit a crime) and Article 80 (premeditated violation of the border by a group). Sheremet was additionally charged under Article 167 - exceeding his authority as a journalist resulting in damage to the public interest. He was released on October 8 on his own recognizance, pending trial.

The trial began on December 17, 1997 in the border town of Oshmyany. The choice of location for the trial, which had generated enormous interest in Belarus and Russia and had prompted the personal intervention of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, greatly limited coverage. First, the court room itself was clearly too small to hold all the interested parties, prompting the defense to apply, without success, to have the hearing moved to more spacious premises.92 Second, travel to the town of Oshmyany necessitated special permission from the authorities, as it is located in a designated border zone.

On January 28, 1998, the court pronounced Sheremet and Zavadsky guilty as charged and sentenced them to two and one and a half years of imprisonment respectively, suspended for one year.

The state chose to prosecute Sheremet and Zavadsky apparently because of the role they played in exposing the lack border demarcation,93 a subject of official sensitivity. This notion is supported by the timing of their arrest: whereas they were merely fined when caught in the border area, they were arrested and charged only after their film clips aired on television. Human Rights Watch further believes that the prior public accusations by the government of bias in Sheremet's reporting and the stripping of his accreditation, also indicate the political nature of the case.

71 Belapan news agency, May 5, 1998.

72 Human Rights Watch interview with Ales' Lipau, Minsk, February 18, 1998.
73 The alterations included exempting publications with a print-run of less than 300 issues from registering with the State Committee on the Press; in the ban on defamation, substitution of a general reference to high officials for a specific reference to the president; and reducing the maximum period of suspension of media outlets in breach of the law from twelve to three months.
74 For further details on these cases please see "Crushing Civil Society," pp 23-25.
75 Belapan news agency, Minsk, May 4, 1998.
76 Following Svaboda's closure, the newspaper continued to appear on the Internet - http://www/belarus.net/MassMedia/Newspaper/Svaboda/ - without evident government interference. On January 16, 1998, a new newspaper, entitled Naviny (The News), was launched by the same staff and funders of Svaboda. The Belarusian Association of Journalists reported in the January edition of their periodical, The Fourth Estate, that Naviny received a warning from the State Committee on the Press on January 23, 1998 for reprinting the Svaboda logo on the front page.
77 Human Rights Watch interview with Irina Khalip, Minsk, February 20, 1998.
78 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs revoked NTV correspondent Aleksander Stupnikov's accreditation on March 24, 1997. Human Rights Watch, "Crushing Civil Society," A Human Rights Watch Report, pp. 21-23.
79 Belapan news agency, Minsk, March 13, 1998, and Interfax news agency, Moscow, March 17, 1998, both cited in WNC.
80 Human Rights Watch, "Crushing Civil Society," pp. 22-23.
81 ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, July 9, 1997. See also, Human Rights Watch, "Crushing Civil Society," pp. 11-17.
82 Interview with Pavel Sheremet, radio station Ekho Moskvy (Moscow), cited in WNC, July 11, 1997.
83 Mikhail Pastukhov, "Sheremet and Zavadsky on Trial: Shame on Belarusian Justice," reprinted in The Fourth Estate, the bulletin of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, January 1998. Pastukhov is a former constitutional court judge who resigned in protest at the November 1996 referendum that amended the constitution. During the trial of Sheremet, Pastukhov acted as Sheremet's public defender. Pastukhov is currently the director of the Center for Media Law and Practice at the Belarusian Association of Journalists based in Minsk.
84 Interfax news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, July 30, 1997.
85 Interfax news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, July 31, 1997.
86 Minsk radio, Minsk, cited in WNC, September 4, 1997.
87 Interfax news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, September 5, 1997.
88 This is a matter of great official sensitivity not only because it facilitates smuggling, but because there is no border between Belarus and Russia. Hence, if Belarus' border are transparent, so then is Russia's western border.
89 Interfax news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, August 19, 1997.
90 Interfax news agency, Moscow, cited in WNC, August 22, 1997.
91 Belapan news agency, Minsk, cited in WNC, September 25, 1997.
92 Radio Rossiya, Moscow, cited in WNC, December 22, 1997. One Western observer, who attended the trial and requested anonymity, commented that they suspected the authorities of filling the court room with local residents in order to reduce yet further space for journalists and other observers of note. This supposition is supported by Foreign Minister Antanovich's "recommendation," reported by Radio Rossiya also on December 22, that Belarusian and foreign journalists not attend the trial to avoid putting pressure on the court.
93 One Oshmyany resident explained local confusion over the trial, "We can't understand what they're being tried for... [Locals cross the border] all the time. We're all criminals." Moscow Times (Moscow), pp. 1-2, January 29, 1998.

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