IPI Public Statements

1 Journalist was
killed in 2005

IPI condems journalists' arrest

28 April 2005

H.E. Alexander Lukashenko
President
Office of the President
Minsk
Republic of Belarus

Fax: +375 17 222 35 03

Vienna, 28 April 2005

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, strongly condemns the prison sentences given to two Russian journalists in Minsk on 27 April.

According to information before IPI, Alexei Ametov, a reporter for Russian Newsweek, was given a ten day term, and Mikhail Romanov, a reporter with the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily, an eight day term. According to local reports, the two journalists were transferred to a detention centre.

Both Ametov and Romanov were covering the 26 April rally marking the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, which attracted around 400 people, who protested against President Alexander Lukashenko's policies to repopulate the region.

Activists from Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian youth organisations took part in the protests, and most of them were sentenced with up to 15 days of detention. Local organisations reported that a complete list of those taken into custody was still unknown, because the participants of the rally were tried in different courts. This was viewed as a government tactic designed to avoid the arrests being made public and to confuse human rights activists and journalists. Local reports also stated that the trials took place behind closed doors.

The Lenin district court in Minsk found Ametov guilty of violating Article 167 of the Administrative Code ("infringements of legislation on the staging of religious, sports, mass cultural or other spectator events, as well as gatherings, mass meetings, street processions, demonstrations and pickets"). The Tsentralny district court charged Romanov with taking part in an unauthorised rally.

IPI would like to remind Your Excellency that according to Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights everyone has the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Limiting press freedom and other basic human rights will only prevent your government's ability to ensure security and stability in Belarus.

IPI hopes that the Belarusian authorities will act quickly in releasing the journalists, who were practicing their profession. IPI strongly believes that the public has a right to know and journalists play an essential role in providing this information. In any democracy, it is crucial that governments encourage the free flow of information and refrain from harassing and intimidating journalists.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director

Read Country Reports on 'Belarus':

2007 World Press Freedom Review
2006 World Press Freedom Review
2005 World Press Freedom Review
2004 World Press Freedom Review
2003 World Press Freedom Review
2002 World Press Freedom Review
2001 World Press Freedom Review
2000 World Press Freedom Review
1999 World Press Freedom Review
1998 World Press Freedom Review

Journalists killed in 'Belarus':

2005 (1)
2004 (1)
2002 (1)

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