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JOURNALISTS TARGETED BY DEFAMATION LAWS

The use of defamation laws to silence journalists critical of Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko has come under scrutiny following the recent sentencing of two reporters from the independent weekly newspaper "Pahonya." The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), International Press Institute (IPI) and ARTICLE 19 are drawing attention to the 24 June conviction of Mikola Markevich and Paval Mazheika for defaming the president. They were sentenced to up to 2 ½ years of hard labour.

The journalists were charged for publishing articles critical of Lukashenko in the run-up to the presidential elections in September 2001, says CPJ. The articles questioned whether Lukashenko was fit to run for re-election while suspected of using death squads to eliminate political opponents, adds Article 19. The group says during the elections, KGB agents also harassed employees of "Pahonya" and ordered its offices closed in November.

Following the sentencing of Markevich and Mazheika, another independent journalist, Viktar Ivashkevich, has been charged under the same defamation laws for publishing an August 2001 article accusing Lukashenko and his government of corruption, CPJ and ARTICLE 19 note. The article was titled "A Thief Belongs in Prison." If convicted, Ivashkevich, editor-in-chief of "Rabochy," faces up to five years in prison.

The legal actions have prompted Freimut Duve, Media Freedom Representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to raise concerns about the journalists' plight. In a recent report to the OSCE Permanent Council, Duve said the state of free expression in Belarus was "distressing" and "unacceptable" in an OSCE state. "Libel should not be used to clamp down on those who consider themselves in opposition to the current government," he said.

Duve also expressed concern over comments made by the editor of a government-run publication urging other state-owned literary magazines not to publish the works of authors critical of the government. Nina Chaika, recently appointed editor of the journal "Neman" by Lukashenko, was recently quoted as saying she would not publish writer Vasil Bykov's works "until he writes something about the present situation in the country which would be acceptable to the authorities."

To see Duve's report, go to
www.osce.org/fom.

ARTICLE 19's reports on Belarus can be viewed at
www.article19.org.