In May 2002, CPJ named Belarus one of the world’s 10 worst places to be a journalist, highlighting the stifling repression of Europe’s most authoritarian regime. The rest of the year brought more bad news for the country’s besieged but strong-willed private media, with President Aleksandr Lukashenko tightening his grip on power while the economy floundered. Using a broad arsenal of weapons, Lukashenko carried out an unprecedented assault against the independent and opposition press.

Though criminal libel laws have been in effect since 1999, officials used the statutes for the first time in 2002, specifically targeting those journalists who had dared to criticize Lukashenko’s successful, but controversial, fall 2001 re-election. Three journalists with independent newspapers—Mikola Markevich and Paval Mazheika of Pahonya and Viktar Ivashkevich of Rabochy—received corrective labor sentences for libeling the president in pre-election articles. At year’s end, all three were serving their terms.

During the second half of 2002, criminal cases were launched against an opposition politician for libeling the president in a published statement; against a woman for distributing anti-Lukashenko flyers; and against a journalist with the daily Belarusskaya Delovaya Gazeta for criticizing Belarus’ prosecutor general. Meanwhile, a former lawyer for the mother of disappeared cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky received a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for libeling the prosecutor general.

In September, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, a prominent local nongovernmental organization, launched a campaign to repeal criminal libel clauses and even submitted a proposal to the Chamber of Representatives, the Parliament’s lower house. The legislators, however, voted against placing the proposal on the agenda.

Politically motivated civil libel lawsuits, with exorbitant fines, also debilitated the media during 2002. In August, the independent newspaper Nasha Svaboda was convicted of libeling the chairman of the State Control Committee and fined 100 million Belarusian rubles (US$55,000). Unable to pay, the publication was forced to close.

Local journalists told CPJ about more subtle financial pressures used to harass the independent press. During an October research mission to Belarus, CPJ found that nonstate media face financial discrimination. For example, according to local journalists, government officials pressure some advertisers not to buy space in publications that criticize Lukashenko and his regime. Government officials also regularly encourage companies to pull advertising and threaten them with audits should they fail to do so.

State publications received subsidies and other financial breaks that helped them weather escalating costs in 2002. The Belarusian postal service, Belpochta, which distributes almost all of the country’s print media, increased newspaper delivery rates. That charge fell only on independent outlets, as did a new 5 percent tax levied in September by the Minsk City Council of Deputies.

In 2002, several independent newspapers—including Belaruskaya Maladzyozhnaya, Rabochy, Den, and Tydnyovik Mahilyouski—unable to shoulder the financial bur-
dens, halted operation. In June, lack of money forced the private radio station Radyjo Racyja off the air.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko moved to strengthen state television—already an official mouthpiece. He announced the creation of the Second National Channel (BT-2), to join the existing First National Channel (ONT), as well as measures to bolster Stolichnoye Televideniye (Capital Television). Lukashenko also reduced the amount of broadcast time allocated for the hugely popular Russian television networks, ostensibly for financial reasons. But observers say the government has been displeased with Russian television, which frequently portrays Lukashenko and his administration negatively.

The July 2000 disappearance of Russian cameraman Zavadsky continues to evoke local and international outrage and serve as a chilling reminder of the scope of human rights abuses in Belarus. Although two former members of Belarus’ elite Almaz special forces unit were convicted in 2002 of kidnapping the journalist, state prosecutors failed to investigate allegations that senior government officials may have been involved. In hopes of finding the mastermind behind the disappearance, the Zavadsky family has appealed the convictions. Although their appeal was initially rejected, the Prosecutor General’s Office reopened the Zavadsky case in December.

The court also ordered Nasha Svaboda to pay for a retraction to be printed in the state newspaper Sovetskaya Belorussiya and in Respublika, a Council of Ministers publication. The lawsuit—filed by Anatol Tozik, chairman of the State Control Committee—came after Nasha Svaboda published a July 16 article alleging that Tozik had complained to Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko about Prosecutor General Viktar Sheiman’s professional conduct.

The lawsuit was filed days after Lukashenko publicly announced his distaste for what he called the media’s attempts to “discredit highest-level officials” with “false information” and the president’s desire to punish those who “disseminate” these “distorted facts.” In 1999, Nasha Svaboda’s predecessor, Naviny, closed after the same court levied an excessive fine against the publication of US$50,000 in a defamation lawsuit filed by Prosecutor General Sheiman, who was at that time head of the Security Council.

In September 2002, the Hrodna Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into Pahonya’s online activities, accusing the newspaper of illegally distributing printed materials. However, the journalists contend that because Belarusian law does not regulate Internet publications, it is illegal to prosecute them as regular media outlets.