Dmitry Zavadsky

Authorities moved aggressively to control the Internet, introducing sweeping new restrictions that allow the government to monitor citizens’ use of the Web. President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s administration continued its practice of suppressing dissent—but paid a price in May when the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) denied Belarus a seat following international criticism of the country’s poor human rights and press freedom record.

Determined to forestall the kind of democratic uprising that toppled the government in neighboring Ukraine, authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and his government crushed dissent in the run-up to the March presidential election—and well beyond. Official results showed that Lukashenko collected 83 percent of the vote to gain a third term, but international observers said the election fell far short of democratic standards. Authorities arrested dozens of domestic and foreign journalists who tried to report on the campaign and subsequent demonstrations in the capital, Minsk, over voting irregularities. In the months surrounding the election, the Lukashenko administration made it nearly impossible for independent and opposition media to deliver news and opinion to their audiences. The state postal service refused to deliver newspapers critical of the government; the state distribution agency banned sales of such papers on newsstands; printing houses refused to print them under government pressure; and border police confiscated entire press runs of publications that managed to find alternative printers abroad. Under such dismal conditions, papers set up distribution systems reminiscent of the underground press in Soviet times, selling copies from their newsrooms and dispatching volunteers to deliver them door-to-door to subscribers. Even then, some volunteers were arrested, CPJ research shows.

BELARUS

Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko continued a systematic crackdown on independent media and nongovernmental organizations, further tightening control over domestic news ahead of the 2006 presidential election. Lukashenko consolidated internal power after a rigged October 2004 parliamentary election and accompanying referendum that eliminated presidential term limits, but he was still left looking nervously over his shoulder at political change happening elsewhere in the region.

Moscow, February 10, 2006—The Belarusian government's persecution of the country's few independent newspapers undermines the integrity of the March 19 presidential election in which Aleksandr Lukashenko seeks a third term, the Committee to Protect Journalists and two regional press freedom organizations said today. The groups called on the Russian Federation, the European Union, and the United States to renounce the vote if Belarusian authorities continue to deny the public access to independent reporting.

New York, April 8, 2005—Prosecutors in capital of Minsk, have reopened the inquiry into the July 2000 abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky, a 29-year-old cameraman for the Russian public network ORT, according to the Minsk-based human rights group Charter 97.

Olga Zavadskaya, whose son is presumed dead after disappearing nearly five years ago, received a letter from the prosecutor-general's office yesterday, acknowledging the need to "carry out additional investigations," local reports said. Zavadskaya had filed a formal petition with prosecutors in August 2004 in an effort to reopen the investigation, which had been suspended in March of that year.

Overview
by Alex Lupis

Authoriatarian rulers strengthened their hold on power in many former Soviet republics in 2004. Their secretive, centralized governments aggressively suppressed all forms of independent activity, from journalism and human rights monitoring to religious activism and political opposition.

Belarus

President Aleksandr Lukashenko strangled the country's independent and opposition media in the months before deeply flawed October elections that returned his supporters to Parliament. The obedient state media flooded the capital, Minsk, and the countryside with pro-Lukashenko propaganda, vilifying opposition leaders and urging voters to support the president or face Western domination and political instability. The October vote also ratified a constitutional amendment enabling the president to seek a third term.

New York, August 5, 2004—Two weeks after the Belarusian president said he had information and documents about the investigation into a 29-year-old cameraman's disappearance, the journalist's mother is demanding a renewed inquiry.

Olga Zavadskaya, whose son Dmitry is presumed dead after vanishing four years ago, told CPJ in an interview today that she filed a formal petition August 4 with the Prosecutor General's Office in the Belarusian capitol of Minsk.

New York, April 30, 2004—The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is based in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday passed a resolution seeking sanctions against the authoritarian government of Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko for failing to properly investigate a series of abductions, including the July 2000 abduction of journalist Dmitry Zavadsky.

PACE called on members of the Council of Europe, a pan-European human rights monitoring organization, to apply "a maximum of political pressure" against Belarusian authorities until they conduct a credible inquiry into allegations that senior government officials—including Prosecutor General Viktar Sheiman—ordered the abduction of Lukashenko’s political opponents and then covered up their involvement.

New York, April 19, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has learned that prosecutors in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, have suspended their criminal inquiry into the July 7, 2000, abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky, a 29-year-old cameraman for the Russian public television network ORT, who disappeared in July 2000.

Ivan Branchel, deputy head of the prosecutor’s organized crime and corruption department, sent a letter to Zavadsky’s wife, Svetlana Zavadskaya, in early April informing her that the case was closed on March 31, said the Minsk-based human rights group Charter 97.