[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 59 (Friday, April 11, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S5332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REGIME TARGETS INDEPENDENT MEDIA IN BELARUS

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, recently I introduced S. 700, the 
Belarus Democracy Act, a bipartisan inititive aimed at supporting 
democratic forces in the Republic of Belarus. As co-chairman of the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I want to report to 
my colleagues on the pressures faced by independent media in that 
country. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has just released 
their annual report documentating the dangers journalists face around 
the world, including Belarus.
  In May of 2002, CPJ named Belarus one of the 10 worst places in the 
world to be a journalist due to the worsening repression under Europe's 
most authoritarian regime. Throughout the year the situation of the 
country's independent media deteriorated as Belarusian leader 
Aleksander Lukashenka mounted a comprehensive assault on all 
independent and opposition press.
  While criminal libel laws had been on the books since 1999, they were 
not used by the Government until 2002. The law stipulates that public 
insults or libel against the President may be punished by up to 4 years 
in prison, 2 years in a labor camp, or by large fine. Articles in the 
criminal code which prohibit slaundering and insulting the President or 
government officials are also used to stifle press freedom. The 
criminal code provides for a maximum penalty of 5 years' imprisonment 
for such offenses.
  Journalists critical of the fall 2001 presidential elections were 
targeted. Mikola Markevich and Pavel Mazheyka of Pahonya and Viktar 
Ivashkevich of of Rabochy were sentenced to corrective labor for 
`libeling'' the President in pre-election articles. On March 4, a 
district court in Belarus commuted Milola Markevich's sentence from 
time in a corrective labor facility to ``corrective labor at home.'' On 
March 21, a district court released Pavel Mazheyka on parole. Under 
Belarus law, prisoners may be released on parole after serving half 
term their.
  Other charges were leveled later in the year against a woman who 
distributed anti-Lukashenka flyers, an opposition politician for 
libeling the President in a published statement, and a Belarusskaya 
Delovaya Gazeta reporter for criticizing the Prosecutor General of 
Belarus. A former lawyer for the mother of disappeared cameraman Dmitry 
Zavadsky received a 1\1/2\ year prison sentence suspended for 2 years 
for libeling the Prosecutor General.
  Last August the independent newspaper Nasha Svaboda was fined 100 
million Belarusian rubles for civil libel of the chairman of the State 
Control Committee. The paper closed when it could not pay the fine. 
There are other forms of pressure and harassment as well.
  The CPJ report notes the financial discrimination faced by nonstate 
media, including pressure from government officials on potential 
advertisers not to buy space in publications that criticize Lukashenka 
and his regime. Government officials also regularly encourage companies 
to pull advertising and threaten them with audits should they fail to 
do so, according to CPJ.
  When the Belasrusian Government increased newspaper delivery rates, 
only nongovernmental papers had to pay. When the Minsk City Council of 
Deputies levied 5 percent tax on newspapers, government papers were 
again exempt. Such tactics caused such indepdents as the Belaruskaya 
Maladzyozhnaya, Rabochy, Den and Tydnyovik Mahilyouski to go under.
  According to the State Department's recently released County Reports 
on Human Rights Practices ``the regime continued to use its near-
monopolies on newsprint production, newspaper printing and 
distribution, and national television and radio broadcasts to restrict 
dissemination of opposition viewpoints.''
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support S. 700, the Belarus 
Democracy Act, in support of those brave individuals in Belarus, 
including representatives of independent media, who speak out in 
defense of human rights and democracy in a nation which enjoys neither.

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