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Belarus – Partner organization targeted by state TV hate propaganda

Last week, President Obama signed into law a bill that expands sanctions against Belarus, whose authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko continues to imprison his opponents and critics. Lukashenko unleashed the latest crackdown hours after the flawed December 2010 presidential vote, which declared him winner of a fourth term. Repression in Belarus is ongoing. Last week, authorities further tightened their grip on the media by restricting access to blacklisted websites. On Monday, a district court in Minsk jailed an independent reporter for filming a one-man protest vigil in front of the KGB headquarters.

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Blog: What US can’t accept in Belarus, it supports in Uzbekistan

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A year on from Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel: China still ‘under shadow of the future’

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Bialiatski Conviction Latest Human Rights Abuse in Belarus

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Belarus: Drop Charges Against Activist

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CEPA and Freedom House Release Belarus Working Group Report

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Freedom House Releases Report: "Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On"

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Europe and Central Asia – OSCE urged to prioritise protection of journalists in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

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Belarus – Increased harassment of journalists on eve of Freedom Day

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Freedom House Condemns Belarus Postelection Trials, Continuing Crackdown

Top Developments
• Authorities wage post-election crackdown, raiding newsrooms and jailing reporters.
• New Internet law requires registration of sites, tracking of user activity.

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Attacks on the Press 2010: Belarus

New York, February 11, 2011–The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns today’s imprisonment in Minsk of Andrzej
Poczobut, a Grodno correspondent for the largest Polish daily,
Gazeta Wyborcza, and calls on
Belarusian authorities to release him immediately.

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Andrzej Poczobut sentenced to prison in Belarus

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Belarus – Heavy restrictions for released journalists

The British broadcaster’s decision follows a similar move by the U.S. international radio station, the Voice of America (VOA), which was forced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — a government agency managing U.S. international broadcasts — to end on-air VOA Russian radio programs in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military incursion into Georgia. As a result of this move, VOA lost most of its pre-2008 audience in Russia. Due to criticism from media freedom activists, the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the U.S. had subsequently agreed to allow VOA to resume a 30 minute Monday through Friday online radio broadcast in Russia. The British announced that the BBC will distribute some Russian-language radio programs online.

As part of the planned budget cuts, the BBC has also announced the complete closure of five language services – Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa and Serbian languages; as well as the English for the Caribbean regional service.

Neither VOA nor BBC have been able to maintain a significant radio audience in Russia due to the actions of the FSB, the Russian security service, which forced radio stations using VOA and BBC programs to stop local rebroadcasts. The FSB also used the same tactics against the BBG-funded U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

While destroying their ability to develop a significant audience in Russia, the FSB stopped short, however, of driving Western broadcasters out of the country altogether. In an apparent effort to avoid retaliation, which would have been in any case highly unlikely, and to maintain their ability to distribute Russia Today satellite television news (RT) and the Voice of Russia (VOR) programs on local channels in the West, the Russian authorities allowed VOA, BBC, and RFE/RL to continue using low-power AM transmitters, which provided only limited and poor reception in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Despite the weak signal, the Russian authorities have been demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the BBC and the BBG each year for the use of these transmitters.

Other than the Internet, the only other option to distribute news programs in Russia outside of the control and interference from the FSB is through the use of outside-based high-power shortwave and AM radio transmitters or through the use of satellite delivery of audio and video. Audiences to shortwave radio broadcasts have been declining sharply in recent years. Still, shortwave broadcasts are the only reliable medium for distributing radio programs, especially during political emergencies. The Russian security services sabotaged and blocked websites in Georgia during the 2008 military incursion and the Belarus KGB blocked social media sites and sabotaged human rights NGO websites during the pro-democracy protests last December.

Satellite TV is also a more secure way of delivering news to Russian-speaking audiences, but neither the BBC nor the BBG, which runs the Voice of America, have been willing to invest in developing regular satellite TV news programming in Russian. The BBG had terminated regularly-scheduled VOA satellite TV newscast in Russian several years ago while allowing the VOA Russian Service to produce short video news reports for placement on YouTube. The BBC Russian Service also produces video news reports for online placement.

Ted Lipien, former acting associate director of the Voice of America who now runs media freedom NGO Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), said that the BBC decision to end its Russian-language radio programs will further weaken independent journalism in Russia, Belarus, the Caucasus, and in Central Asia at the time when the local secret police agencies are more determined than ever to control the flow of news and information in an effort to maintain the power of dictatorial, authoritarian, and corrupt regimes. Unfortunately, neither the BBC nor the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the U.S. had reacted forcefully when the Russian authorities systematically limited their ability to distribute programs in Russia in cooperation with independent Russian broadcasters, most of whom have since been driven off the air or forced to follow the Kremlin line, Lipien said.

###

From the BBC press release:

BBC World Service will cease all radio programming – focusing instead, as appropriate, on online, mobile and television content and distribution – in the following languages: Azeri, Mandarin Chinese (note that Cantonese radio programming continues), Russian (save for some programmes which will be distributed online only), Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.

From the BBC Russian Service website:

Русская служба Би-би-си перенесет вещание в интернет

Русская служба Би-би-си существенно сократит количество радиопрограмм и будет вещать исключительно через интернет.

BBC Press Release

BBC World Service cuts language services and radio broadcasts to meet tough Spending Review settlement

Date: 26.01.2011

Category: BBC; World Service

BBC World Service gave details of its response to a cut to its Grant-in-Aid funding from the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office today.

BBC World Service is to carry out a fundamental restructure in order to meet the 16 per cent savings target required by the Government’s Spending Review of 20 October last year.

To ensure the 16 per cent target is achieved and other unavoidable cost increases are met BBC World Service is announcing cash savings of 20 per cent over the next three years. This amounts to an annual saving of £46m by April 2014, when Grant-in-Aid funding comes to an end as BBC World Service transfers to television licence fee funding, agreed as part of the domestic BBC’s licence fee settlement announced on the same day.

In the first year, starting in April 2011, the international broadcaster will be making savings of £19m on this year’s operating expenditure of £236.7m (2010/11).

The changes include:

five full language service closures;
the end of radio programmes in seven languages, focusing those services on online and new media content and distribution; and
a phased reduction from most short wave and medium wave distribution of remaining radio services.
BBC Global News Director Peter Horrocks said: “This is a painful day for BBC World Service and the 180 million people around the world who rely on the BBC’s global news services every week. We are making cuts in services that we would rather not be making. But the scale of the cut in BBC World Service’s Grant-in-Aid funding is such that we couldn’t cope with this by efficiencies alone.

“What won’t change is the BBC’s aim to continue to be the world’s best known and most trusted provider of high quality impartial and editorially independent international news. We will continue to bring the BBC’s expertise, perspectives and content to the largest worldwide audience, which will reflect well on Britain and its people.”

BBC World Service also plans spending reductions and efficiencies across the board, targeted in particular in support areas where there will be average cuts of 33 per cent.

BBC World Service also expects to generate additional savings from the new ways of working after the move to the BBC’s London headquarters at Broadcasting House in 2012, and also by the transfer of BBC World Service to television licence fee funding in April 2014.

Under these proposals 480 posts are expected to close over the next year.

By the time the BBC World Service moves in to the licence fee in 2014/15 we anticipate the number of proposed closures to reach 650. Some of these closures may be offset by new posts being created during this period.

It is expected that audiences will fall by more than 30 million from the current weekly audience of 180 million as a result of the changes this year.

The changes have been approved by the BBC Trust, the BBC Executive and, in relation to closure of services, The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, as he is required to do under the terms of the BBC’s agreement with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The changes in detail are:

Full language service closures
There will be the complete closure of five language services – Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa and Serbian languages; as well as the English for the Caribbean regional service.

End of radio programming
BBC World Service will cease all radio programming – focusing instead, as appropriate, on online, mobile and television content and distribution – in the following languages: Azeri, Mandarin Chinese (note that Cantonese radio programming continues), Russian (save for some programmes which will be distributed online only), Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.

Reductions in short wave and medium wave radio distribution
There will be a phased reduction in medium wave and short wave throughout the period.

English language short wave and medium wave broadcasts to Russia and the Former Soviet Union are planned to end in March 2011. The 648 medium wave service covering Western Europe and south-east England will end in March 2011. Listeners in the UK can continue to listen on DAB, digital television and online. Those in Europe can continue to listen online or direct to home free-to-air satellite via Hotbird and UK Astra. By March 2014, short wave broadcasts of the English service could be reduced to two hours per day in Africa and Asia.

BBC World Service will cease all short wave distribution of its radio content in March 2011 in: Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Swahili and the Great Lakes service (for Rwanda and Burundi).

These radio services will continue to be available for audiences by other means of distribution such as FM radio (direct broadcasts and via partners); online; mobiles and other new media devices.

Short wave broadcasts in remaining languages other than English are expected to end by March 2014 with the exception of a small number of “lifeline” services such as Burmese and Somali.

English language programmes
There will be a new schedule for World Service English language programming – a focus on four daily news titles (BBC Newshour, BBC World Today, BBC World Briefing, and BBC World Have Your Say); and a new morning programme for Africa. There will be a new daily edition of From Our Own Correspondent; and an expansion of the interactive World Have Your Say programme.

There will be a reduction from seven to five daily pre-recorded “non-news” programmes on the English service. This includes the loss of one of the four weekly documentary strands. Some programmes will be shortened. Titles such as Politics UK, Europe Today, World Of Music, Something Understood, Letter From…, and Crossing Continents will all close. There will also be the loss of some correspondent posts.

Audience reduction
Audiences will fall by more than 30 million as a result of the changes announced on 26 January 2011. Investments in new services are planned in order to offset further net audience losses resulting from additional savings in the 2012-14 period.

Professional Services
There will be a substantial reduction in an already tight overhead budget. Teams in Finance, HR, Business Development, Strategy, Marketing and other administrative operations will face cuts averaging 33 per cent.

Job losses
Under these proposals 480 posts would be declared redundant; of these 26 posts are currently unfilled vacancies. BBC World Service is proposing to open 21 new posts. Therefore the net impact of these proposed changes could result in up to 433 posts being closed this financial year against a total staff number of 2400.

By the time the BBC World Service moves in to the licence fee in 2014/15 we anticipate the number of proposed closures to reach up to 650. Some of these closures may be offset by new posts being created during this period.

Notes to Editors
BBC World Service is currently an international multimedia broadcaster delivering 32 language and regional services, including: Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Burmese, Cantonese, English, English for Africa, English for the Caribbean, French for Africa, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese for Africa, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Somali, Spanish for Latin America, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of 180 million globally, including shortwave, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels. Its news sites, which received 7.5 million weekly visitors in November 2010, include audio and video content and offer opportunities to join the global debate. It has around 2,000 partner radio stations which take BBC content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices. For more information, visit bbcworldservice.com. For a weekly alert about BBC World Service programmes, sign up for the BBC World Agenda e-guide at bbcworldservice.com/eguide.

BBC World Service is part of BBC Global News. BBC Global News brings together BBC World Service – funded by Grant-in-Aid by the UK Government; the commercially funded BBC World News television channel and the BBC’s international facing online news services in English; BBC Monitoring – which is funded by stakeholders led by the Cabinet Office, and a range of public and private clients; and BBC World Service Trust – the BBC’s international development charity which uses donor funding. No licence fee funds are currently used in any of these operations.

BBC World Service Press Office

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Belarus – Two more independent journalists jailed

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Belarus – Journalists continue to be detained and tried

New York, January 3, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the European Union today to condition its diplomatic relations with Belarus on the release of all recently arrested journalists and the halt of official Minsk’s crackdown on the independent press.

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Journalists charged, police raids continue in Belarus

Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org) applauds the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the initiative’s participants for organizing this effort to express solidarity with the people of Belarus.

According to Free Media Online president Ted Lipien, this public diplomacy action is in many ways similar to the American expressions of support for the Polish people after General Jaruzelski’s imposition of martial law in Poland in December of 1981, except at that time President Ronald Reagan, the White House staff, the State Department, and the now defunct United States Information Agency (USIA) were all in the forefront of numerous U.S. government and private sector efforts to expose human rights violations and publicly condemn the communist regime in Warsaw. The absence of high-profile figures of the Obama administration in this latest action in support of democracy in Belarus is quite telling and confirms that East-Central Europe and defense of human rights abroad are a much lower priority for President Obama, said Lipien.

We are disappointed that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not join other world leaders, former statesmen, and dissidents who took time from their busy schedules to record their messages of support and solidarity with Belarus.

Read the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s announcement here.

To listen to the solidarity reading on Radio Svaboda [Radio Liberty Belarus Service], click here.

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In Belarus, more newsroom raids as crackdown continues

Hal Roberts at Berkman has more details. As the Charter ’97 English Twitter feed notes, when your electricity is cut off and editors are being detained, such subtle technical censorship is somewhat of a side-note for journalists working within the country. But during key events, when reporters and eye-witnesses are working with foreign news media, such blocking can seriously hamper the ability to gather information and describe what is happening to the world at large.

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New York, December 27, 2010–Belarusian authorities must immediately halt their assault on independent and pro-opposition news media, a crackdown that has led to unjust detentions, raids, and seizures, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Read more

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Old habits die hard in Belarus

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Belarus –
At least 25 journalists detained, two of them facing 15-year jail terms

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Freedom House Calls for Transatlantic Solidarity on Belarus

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Belarus –
A score of journalists arrested, a similar number beaten by police

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Belarus Election: Thousands Protest Flawed Election, Freedom House Says

STATEMENT

Combating Impunity for Those Who Attack and Kill Journalists
in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

This Joint Statement is an outcome of the international conference Ten years on – no justice for Georgiy Gongadze: the Need to Find New Ways to Fight Impunity, organised by ARTICLE 19 and International Media Support (IMS) on 16 September 2010 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The aim of the conference was to address the protection of journalists in
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, including the use of violence as a means of controlling the media, the lack of effective government interventions to prevent and investigate abuses, and the resultant chilling effect on the media environment. The conference redefined
advocacy strategies to combat impunity in a constructive way.

The conference concluded the following:

• Over the last ten years there have been numerous attacks on journalists in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The deaths of certain journalists have attracted worldwide attention and condemnation, for example the killing of Georgiy Gongadze in Ukraine in 2000, of Anna Politkovskaya in Russia in 2006, and of Natalia Estemirova in 2009. Many more attacks, deaths and disappearances such as Dmitry Zavadsky in Belarus in 2000 have been recorded by local and international monitors

• Yet, in all three countries, not one of these incidents has resulted in a full and effective investigation or prosecution of the instigators of these crimes, and only a limited number of perpetrators have been tried and sentenced. Indeed, the majority of cases involving violence against journalists have been flatly ignored by the authorities or attributed to any other cause except the work they do

• The result of the grossly inadequate responses of the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in relation to attacks on journalists has been the emergence of a climate of impunity, violations of journalists’ human rights and a chilling effect on freedom of expression in these states. Attacks on journalists not only represent
attacks on the rights of individual victims and their families, but also an attack on the right to freely receive and share information and ideas

• The three governments have failed to protect journalists in the pursuit of their profession, and have failed in implementing their own respective laws in this area. The impunity for attacks, disappearances and killings of journalists places the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in breach of their obligations under international and European human rights law, particularly the positive obligations in relation to the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to life and the right not to be subject to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has been ratified by all three states and the European Convention on Human Rights has been ratified by Russia and Ukraine.

The conference adopted several recommendations. The authorities of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine should immediately adopt all necessary political, legal and administrative measures to fully protect journalists and defend the right to freedom of expression, in accordance with
their international responsibilities, including to:

• Recognise publicly that journalists are especially vulnerable to violence because of the work they do, which should always be considered as a motive from the start of any investigation into an attack, death or disappearance

• Publicly condemn threats, attacks, deaths and disappearances of journalists without prejudice and withhold fully from spreading negative propaganda about the journalist in question

• Design and implement effective legislation and policy to promote and protect journalists, enabling them to work in free and safe environments

• Train public officials, especially law enforcement officials, in providing an effective and rapid response when journalists are threatened, including emergency measures to protect them from even greater harm

• Put in place appropriate and effective protection mechanisms for journalists under threat

• In the event of an attack, launch a full, prompt, effective and independent investigation in order to bring both the perpetrators and the instigators to justice, and ensure that where there is a possibility of involvement of local authorities or other government bodies with a conflict of interest, such an investigation is moved to a
different authority outside their jurisdiction or sphere of influence

• Provide up-to-date, ongoing information about the development of such investigations, in the first instance to the next-to-kin and their lawyers, as well as to the general public

• Put in place specific measures to prevent the repetition of such acts

• Pay special attention to facilitating the work of civil society and media organisations regarding freedom of expression and protection of journalists

• Sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and apply the principle of universal jurisdiction on their territories.

Intergovernmental organisations and the international community should also assist by prioritising the protection of journalists in their respective agendas with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. They should be ready to assist these states to comply with their international
obligations regarding human rights according to international law, including following-up on the implementation of relevant decisions and judgements of international human rights bodies, such as the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights
Committee.

Civil society and media organisations should continue to monitor the protection of journalists and the right to freedom of expression in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. In particular, they should consolidate their support to the investigations into attacks and ill-treatment of
journalists and raise their concerns not only at national, but also at bilateral, regional and international levels. At national and international levels, information should be provided to the general public, who should be further engaged and encouraged to partake in any actions or campaigns to combat impunity in this regard. Media organisations should be sensitised to their legal rights and provide adequate safety and self-protection guidance, security equipment, as well as training to both its permanent and freelance employees.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

• For more information please contact: Nathalie Losekoot, ARTICLE 19 Senior Programme Officer, Europe, at nathalie@article19.org or Antonina Cherevko, IMS Programme Officer for
Ukraine, at ac@i-m-s.dk or +380 50 410 27 68.

• ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech. For more information on ARTICLE 19 please visit www.article19.org

• International Media Support (IMS) is a non-profit organisation working with media in countriesaffected by armed conflict, human insecurity and political transition. In more than 30 countries
worldwide, IMS helps to strengthen professional practices and ensure that media and media workers can operate under challenging circumstances. For more information about International
Media Support please visit www.i-m-s.dk

• The conference was organised within the framework of the IMS Media and Democracy Programme for Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

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Belarus –
Harassment continues in run-up to presidential election

 Sourced from: Committee to Protect Journalists – Europe & Central Asia

 Sourced from: America.gov: english

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Eastern Europe press freedom awards 2011

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Belarus –
Opposition journalist’s death – was it suicide or murder?

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Belarus –
Дело Олега Бебенина: суицид или убийство?

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From Belarus to Iran? Sanctions can work