PACE offered to hold hearings on mass media freedom situation in Belarus

• 19.11.2010, 9:24

Holding free election without freedom of expression in the country is impossible.

At the session of the Political Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) on November 18 a representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) Andrei Alyaksandrau offered to hold hearings on the issue of freedom of mass media in Belarus.

As BelaPAN was informed by Alyaksandrau, at the session he said that holding a free election is impossible without freedom of expression. “I noted that freedom of the press and freedom of expression are increasingly important during the election campaign, as the press is the platform for public discussion on which path to take for the society, how it should develop. Without freedom of mass media, when freedom of expression is limited, when such discussion is not carried out, there cannot be a free election in principle,” Alyaksandrau said.

He reminded participants of the session about the crackdown on the mass media writing on socio-political topics, including the economic one, about registration denials for socio-political publications. Besides, a number of independent newspapers still cannot be included into the state-run system of distribution. “Because of the current state of independent mass media the public discussion in Belarus is problematic,” Alyaksandrau noted.

“It is a long-time BAJ’s proposal to hold special hearings on freedom of expression in Belarus, as we believe that it is one of the basic freedoms, and the entire situation in the country to a large extent depends on the freedom of expression situation,” he said. “Besides, I has offered the PACE to carry out the analysis of how the Belarusian authorities respond (or whether they respond at all) to all recommendations of the PACE for Belarus.”