Go to the A Belarus Miscellany Topic List Go to the Human Rights and Censorship section Go to the Belarusian History section
Search the A Belarus Miscellany Web site
"A historian from the Institute of History of the Academy of Science of the Republic of Belarus Yauhen Anishchanka has been turned out of his job. The historian wrote that the Russian Generalissimo Aleksandr Suvorov was a butcher of the Belarusian nation, and Tadeusz Kosciuszko was a hero of the Belarusians, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza informs. 'A Belarusian historian lost his job because of Kosciuszko,' the article states.Yauhen Anishchanka has written 13 books and 370 articles, mostly about the various partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Now he has been identified as a person who is inconsistent with the job of an academician and a research assistant. The reason for that remains confidential.
Anishchanka believes that he was fired because his writings contradict the official ideology of the state. 'The Institute’s administration has always told us that we exist to defend the interests of the president,' Yauhen Anishchanka said. Three years ago, the scholar wanted to defend a doctoral thesis on the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The historian believes that the partitions were a tragedy for the ancestors of modern Belarusians. A Belarusian government commission found his work 'destructive' and he wasn't granted an academic degree.
Independent experts believe that the regime wants to destroy independent Belarusian historiography, but unlike during Soviet times, there are no chances for that happening, Gazeta Wyborcza writes."
Source: Charter 97, 15:52, 06/03/2007
"Prosecutors in Hrodna on 14 February [2002] charged Mikalay Markevich and Pavel Mazheyka with defaming President Lukashenka in articles published in the opposition weekly Pahonya during the 2001 presidential election campaign, Belarusian media reported. In November 2001, the Supreme Court shut down Pahonya after the authorities previously issued two warnings to the weekly (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 14 November 2001). Pahonya, of which Markevich was editor, wrote about the disappearances of opposition figures in Belarus and allegations that those disappearances were organized by a government-sponsored "death squad." If convicted, Markevich and Mazheyka face up to five years in prison. "I have no illusions about my trial and the verdict I may get. But I made my choice," Markevich told BelaPAN."
Source: RFE/RL Newsline, Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk; February 15, 2002
"Iryna Makavetskaya, a correspondent for the Minsk-based Belorusskaya delovaya gazeta, has received a warning from the Prosecutor-General's Office for her article on police brutality, BelaPAN reported on 7 February. She was accused of "spreading false information, making baseless conclusions, and discrediting the law enforcement and judicial authorities." Makavetskaya told the agency that she reported on how police officers severely beat three young men in Homel in 2000. The father of one of them subsequently sued the officers but they got off with minor sentences. The KGB then accused the man of taking bribes. He was sentenced to five years in prison despite the fact that people who testified against him later confessed that they had given false testimony under pressure. "My article was based on comparison. Policemen who brutally beat innocent people get nonprison sentences, while a man goes to jail for five years for some mythical bribes that were never proven," Makavetskaya commented."
Source: RFE/RL Newsline, Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk; February 8, 2002
"The Shklou District Court (Mahileu Oblast) has fined Alyaksandr Shcharbak, the editor in chief of the independent and unregistered periodical Shklouskiya naviny, BelaPAN reported on 30 January [2002]. In September, law enforcement officers found 300 copies of a fresh issue of Shklouskiya naviny in Shcharbak's house and charged him with violating the media law, which stipulates that the maximum circulation of unregistered publications is 299 copies. Shcharbak is to pay a fine of some $60, while the court also ordered the confiscation of the computer equipment used to prepare the periodical, as well as the destruction of the seized issue."
Source: RFE/RL Newsline, Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk; January 31, 2002
"A district court in Brest on 5 January [2002] sentenced Uladzimir Maley and Henadz Samoylenka to 15 days in jail for their participation in an unauthorized demonstration, BelaPAN reported. Eight other participants were fined some $125 each. On 9 December [2001] in Brest, some 30 persons formed a "chain of indifferent people" to remind the public and authorities about the disappearances of opponents of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime."
Source: RFE/RL Newsline, Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk; January 7, 2002
Go to the A Belarus Miscellany Topic List Go to the Human Rights and Censorship section Go to the Belarusian History section
Search the A Belarus Miscellany Web site
Original content and overall form ©1996-2007 by Peter Kasaty : All Rights Reserved. Last Updated: 2007/03/08
Quoted Text, Graphics, Links, and Linked Content belong to their respective owners.