Deutsche Welle: Godbatka-4 to be continued

Information pressure from Russia on the president of Belarus will grow further, experts think.

The NTV documentary Godbatka-4 won’t likely be the last Russian TV project directed against Lukashenka, Deutsche Welle reports.

According to independent experts, the armoury of instruments to discredit the Belarusian dictator is not limited to Godbatka-4 shown on Russian NTV on October 8. The Kremlin has plenty of reasons and opportunities to go on information war, analysts suppose.

The film Godbatka-4 wasn’t shown in Belarus as it was with all previous episodes of the Russian NTV’s project. However, many Belarusians managed to watch on the Internet it before it was displayed on the European part of Russia. The film touched upon the theme of disappeared Belarusian opposition politicians. As human rights activist Aleh Vouchak says in the movie, a new indirect witness in the case of political disappearances in Belarus was introduced.

As Vouchak thinks, lots of claims to the Belarusian authorities represented in the movie leave only two ways for Belarusian prosecutors: either initiating a case against NTV for defamation, or admitting the video materials to the case.

New information may be gathered for a new film about the disappeared Belarusian politicians. According to Aleh Vouchak, the Netherlands-based Tadeusz Kosciuszko Foundation for Democracy in Belarus gathers such materials.

As far as the human rights activist knows, the foundation received a letter six months ago from an anonymous persons saying he had 16 video cassettes with records of execution of not only political opponents of the Belarusian authorities but also businessmen. The author is allegedly ready to give publicity to the materials for $250,000.

New opportunities

Harry Pahanyaila, the head of the legal commission at the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC), was also shown in Godbatka. He thinks Moscow won’t confine itself only to TV projects. Pahanyaila reminded that Belarusian former high-ranking officials, who were involved in investigation of the high-profile cases, live permanently or temporarily in Russia.

As the lawyer says, the Russians have an opportunity to initiate criminal cases against Belarusian top officials under so called universal criminal jurisdiction.

According to Pahanyaila, if such cases was initiated in Russia, former interior ministers of Belarus Uladzimir Navumau and Yury Sivakou, former prosecutor general and state secretary of the Security Council Viktar Sheiman, who no w live or pay visits to Russia, may be interrogated. Russia will also have the right to put them on the Interpol’s wanted list, Harry Pahanyaila says.