Judith Vidal-Hall pays tribute to a tireless campaigner for free expression in the former Soviet Union
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While I was in Minsk helping out on a media rights survey last week, the actual source of the problems in that area, Belarus president Alaksandr Lukashenka, was in Vilnius on a state visit, reportedly excusing the absence of his wife to the local press by praising the beauty of Lithuania’s ladies.
Unreconstructed East European male he may be, he nevertheless left the shop at home – and the responsibility of dealing with me and my colleagues – in the care of his imperious and elegant first deputy head of administration, Natalia Petkevich.
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Freedom of expression groups joined forces this month to investigate the obstacles facing independent media in Alaksandr Lukashenka’s Belarus; censorship made possible by the combination of a number of blunt-edged tools in a deceptively sophisticated system of media control.
Rohan Jayasekera (second left) comments from Minsk.
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Natalia Radizina, the editor of Charter 97 an oppostion news website in Belarus has received an email threatening violence of a sexual nature if she was not careful about what she chose to post. This followed a report by Charter 97 on a pro-Russian neo-fascist group. The website and those who work there have been subject to a long campaign of harrassment by the authorities. Read more here