Government News: Top Stories

Belarusian KGB raids journalists' homes, offices
by Yuras Karmanau

The Associated Press Translate This Article
31 December 2010

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - The Belarusian KGB has been searching the homes and offices of independent journalists following an election that handed the authoritarian president a fourth term, journalists and a media watchdog group said.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the systematic raids, which it said seem aimed at seizing all documents and files related to coverage of the Dec. 19 presidential election and the mass opposition protest that followed.

The election also may have been a factor in the Belarusian government's decision not to extend the mandate of the Minsk office of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The OSCE's election observers had accused President Alexander Lukashenko of using fraudulent counting to win almost 80 percent of the vote.

The OSCE also had condemned the violent dispersal of a protest rally by riot police after the polls had closed.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched through Minsk on election night to protest fraudulent vote counting. About 700 people were arrested, including dozens of journalists and seven presidential candidates.

Photojournalist Yulia Doroshkevich, who works for the weekly newspaper Nasha Niva, said her cameras, computers and tape recorder were seized during a search of her apartment Friday. She said her husband, who is not a journalist but acknowledged to the KGB officers that he also had been at the protest, was taken in for questioning and was being held through the holiday weekend.

Earlier in the week, the KGB searched Nasha Niva's editorial office, seizing 12 computers, hard disks and memory cards, and also seized a computer from the apartment of the newspaper's editor, Reporters Without Borders said.

In its statement issued Thursday, Reporters Without Borders said that since Dec. 25, the KGB had searched the offices of three news outlets and an opposition party, the homes of two journalists, two human rights activists, two former presidential candidates and four of their advisers.

The homes of two more journalists were searched Friday, including those of Doroshkevich and a reporter for the independent television channel Belsat.

'Lukashenko is setting a world record in his attempts to destroy all dissent in Belarus,' Doroshkevich said.

At least 10 of the journalists arrested on Dec. 19 were still in custody, with at least three of them facing up to 15 years in prison on charges of organizing public disorder. The seven candidates, five of whom remain in jail, also face up to 15 years on the same charges.

Most of the people arrested were sentenced to five to 15 days in jail.

Lukashenko, often called Europe's last dictator, has been in power in Belarus for more than 16 years. He exercises overwhelming control over the politics, industry and media in this nation of 10 million, which borders Russia, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic nations.

The closure of the OSCE office in Minsk provided further evidence that the authoritarian president has turned his back on the West after modest efforts to improve relations. His hand was strengthened on the eve of the election when he reached a deal with Russia on oil exports that amounted to a $4 billion subsidy of Belarus' economy.

'The games with the West are over,' said independent political analyst Alexander Klaskovsky. 'A political freeze has come to Belarus.'

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said the OSCE office in Minsk had worked successfully with the government to carry out a number of important joint projects, but it was now being closed because it had 'fulfilled its mandate.'

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, whose country takes over the rotating one-year chairmanship of the OSCE on Saturday, urged Belarus to reconsider its decision.

'Since 1998, the OSCE office in Minsk has been providing valuable support to the government's efforts to promote institution building, consolidate the rule of law and develop relations with civil society in accordance with OSCE principles and commitments, as well as develop activities in the economic and environmental dimension,' Azubalis said in a statement. 'Its mandate has not been completed. There is an important job for the OSCE to continue in Belarus.'

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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