Musicians put on blacklist on recommendation

The Belarusian weekly “Belgazeta” phoned to Minsk radio stations to ask about a ban to air certain musician.

A newspaper correspondent spoke to representatives of BA, Stolitsa, Radio Minsk, Novoe Radio, Radio Roks, Radius FM, Alpha Radio, and Radio ONT. Some of them said they did not have any blacklists. Others said, “I cannot confirm or deny this information”. Only one person was brave enough to shed light on the situation. This is a dialogue between the “Belgazeta” journalist and Dzyanis Zyl, deputy director of Pilot FM, founded by pro-presidential youth organization BRSM.

Could you confirm the fact of existence of the blacklists, which are said to have been sent to Belarusian FM stations?

Well, you know, we had these lists, but they are not official. Actually, it is a usual thing: it seems they do exist, but on the other hand, they do not exist. Officially, there are no such lists. But we have a recommendation, unfortunately, we have.

Did you receive any oral instructions?

Yes, we did. The list of musicians was almost the same as that on the Internet…

So, Dzyanis Zyl helped to reveal the mechanism of the ban. Radio stations receive “recommendations”, which seems “unofficial”, but who will dare to ignore them, especially after the incident with Avtoradio?