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AS ELECTIONS APPROACH; AUTHORITIES IMPLICATED IN CAMERAMAN'S DISAPPEARANCE

The deterioration of freedom of expression is a serious obstacle to free and fair elections in Belarus, according to a new report from ARTICLE 19. The document, entitled "The Mechanics of Repression", examines the prospects for a level playing field in the presidential elections scheduled for 9 September.

"Since Alexander Lukashenka came to power in 1994, his government has waged an active campaign against all sectors of civil society, with the goal of crushing dissent," says ARTICLE 19, which notes that non-state media have been a particular focus of attention. The state has introduced a barrage of laws and promulgated draft legislation calculated to stifle free expression. A number of high-profile personalities have "disappeared" without explanation. Arbitrary and protracted tax inspections, an ever-tightening grip on access to printing facilities, government pressure on advertisers and those who lease premises to "opposition" publications and manipulation of the state-owned publication distribution system are all used to harass the non-state press. In contrast, ARTICLE 19 notes that state-run publications enjoy formal and informal subsidies, allowing them to maintain artificially low cover prices.

"It is a tribute to the persistence and determination of the media workers involved that despite unrelenting government pressure and an impoverished economic climate, non-state newspapers manage to function in Belarus," says ARTICLE 19. The full report is available at www.article19.org.">http://www.article19.org/docimages/1060.htm">www.article19.org.

Meanwhile, Belarusian authorities have been implicated in the disappearance of cameraman Dmitri Zavadski, according to Reporters sans frontières (RSF). On 11 June, two members of the public prosecutor's office, including Dmitri Petrushkevic who oversees the Zavadski case, accused two high-level government figures of having created a "death squad" in 1996. At first, the group was reportedly charged with eliminating crime lords, before receiving more "political" assignments. The two public prosecutor's office officials say that the squad's role in Zavadski's disappearance could be established through DNA testing of a blood stain found in the trunk of the vehicle of one of the group's members. A spokesperson from the Belarusian public prosecutor's office rejects the accusations as "absurd." Zavadski disappeared at the Minsk airport on 7 July 2000. He left state television in 1996 to work for the Russian station ORT, against the Belarusian authorities' wishes. A former personal cameraman to the president, the journalist was imprisoned for two months in 1997 following a report on the weakness of Belarusian security arrangements along the border with Lithuania. For more information, see www.rsf.org.