About IFEX:

News by region:

IFEX Campaigns and Advocacy:

IFEX Email Products:

Opportunities and assistance:

WAN AWARDS GOLDEN PEN OF FREEDOM TO JOURNALISTS

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) presented its 2003 Golden Pen of Freedom award last week to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), praising the organisation for its courageous resistance to President Aleksandr Lukashenko's repression of the media. The presentation was made at WAN's 56th World Newspaper Congress in Dublin.

In accepting the award, BAJ President Zhanna Litvina said international pressure "represents perhaps the only possibility of influencing the current regime and insisting that it meets international media standards."

Through its Law Centre for Media Protection, BAJ provides legal representation for journalists and media companies, publishes guides on media laws and regulations, and organises seminars and conferences. In recent months, it has campaigned to remove criminal defamation laws from the books and lobbied authorities to further investigate the disappearance of cameraman Dmitry Savadsky (see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/33916/)

WAN's presentation of the award came shortly after three independent publications were suspended for publishing content authorities deemed insulting to the president.

On 28 May "Belaruskaya Delovaya Gazeta," a Minsk-based newspaper, was ordered closed for three months after receiving two warnings for allegedly defaming Lukashenko and publishing information about court proceedings without obtaining proper authorization, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says. Under Belarusian laws, media outlets can be ordered closed after receiving two government warnings.

The warnings stemmed from an 18 April article questioning President Lukashenko's personal use of the presidential plane, a 29 April article about a company official on trial for corruption and a series of articles in January and March about the recent trial of Vikto Kazeko, the former director of the state food company, Belgospishcheprom.

On 3 June the satirical newspaper "Navinki" was ordered closed for publishing two photographs and an insulting comment about Lukashenko and two articles entitled "The Press Law" and "Offence to the People's Morality," says Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF). Two days later, the independent weekly "Ekho" suffered the same fate and was forced to shut down for three months.

Read reports and alerts on Belarus by IFEX members: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/188/

Visit these links:

- WAN Golden Pen of Freedom: http://www.wan-press.info/pages/article.php3?id_article=83

- Belarusian Association of Journalists: http://www.baj.unibel.by/indexe.htm