Lukashenka put on predators of press freedom list

The Belarusian dictator is among 40 predators of press freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, an international human rights organization, has issued the appropriate list on May 3, the World Press Freedom Day.

Besides Lukashenka, the RSF’s list includes Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Italian organized crime, China's Hu Jintao, Mexican drug trafficker, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov, other people and organizations.

We remind that Reporters Without Borders has recently made a statement protesting against searches of Belarusian journalists and a decision of the authorities to allow access to their email and Skype accounts.

Reporters Without Borders condemn the militia’s decision to allow militia computer experts to access the email and Skype instant messaging accounts of several independent journalists as part of an investigation prompted by a defamation suit by a former senior official in the Committee for State Security (KGB).

Natallya Radzina of the charter97.org website, Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh of the opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya and Iryna Khalip of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta were told of the decision during interrogation yesterday. Their computers were seized in raids on their homes and offices on 16 March, during which Radzina was hit in the face.

“We demand the immediate return of the equipment seized from these journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Accessing journalists’ emails and instant messaging is a serious violation of both their professional communications and their privacy. It endangers the sources of these journalists, who rightly see it as an additional attempt to intimidate them. The authorities are intensifying the pressure on independent journalists in the run-up to next year’s elections.”