Strasbourg, 11/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - Last week, the European Parliament condemned the recent attacks made by President Alexander Lukachenko against the media, journalists, members of the opposition, defenders of human rights and anybody attempting freely to express opinions criticising the president of the regime.
In a joint resolution (proposed by the EPP-ED, the PES, the ALDE, the Greens/EFA, GUE/NGL and UEN) on the political situation and the independence of the media in Belarus, the euro MPs expressed their indignation at the “arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment of detainees, disappearances, politically motivated persecution and other acts of repression that flout the basic principles of democracy and the rule of law”. On 7 July, a demonstration in Minsk in memory of a Belarussian journalist, Dmitri Zavadski, who mysteriously diappeared five years ago, was broken up by the police and the wife of the missing journalist was hit in the face by a police officer. President Lukachenko's regime has also been accused of being behind the kidnapping and murder of several other opponents. Among them are the former vice deputy Prime Minister Viktor Gontchar, who was kidnapped in September 1999, several months after Iouri Zakharenko, former interior minister, was kidnapped in May 1999. They were both members of the opposition (liberal) United Civil Party.
In its resolution, the European Parliament calls upon the Council and the Commission to set up a multi-annual aid programme for the independent media in Belarus. This kind of programme should provide aid to broadcast independent radio programmes from Poland, Lithuania and possibly Ukraine, and support for journalists and independent newspapers. These radio programmes will be broadcast in Belarussian and Russian and will be produced by independent journalists of Belarus, to guarantee the authenticity and independence of the programmes. However, the MEPs stress that this must be a private initiative and not be managed or steered by bodies within any one of the Member States or any EU institutions. The creation of a satellite television programme for Belarus should also be envisaged, in the view of the Parliament. It also calls on the Council and the Commission to set up a programme of bursaries and training placements for independent journalists and to create training programmes for young independent journalists. In general, the Parliament's resolution stresses that the development of relations between the European Union and Belarus “will also continue to depend on the progress made towards democratisation and reform in the country and access for Belarussians to objective, free and transparent media”.