Belarusians gave a tough rebuff to the West at the OSCE conference
Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky, who arrived in Warsaw for the OSCE conference on freedom of speech, spoke about the inconsistency of the accusations made against Minsk and Moscow by the West.
According to the expert, Belarus was criticized for “blocking sites working from Poland, fines for 17 journalists who worked without accreditation.”
“I spoke at the OSCE ODIHR site. He noted that since 1990, 2500 journalists have been killed in the world, in 2017 - 82 media workers, including 13 people in the OSCE area of responsibility. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine alone, 4 journalists have been killed in this country over 14 years, most of the cases remained without due process and judicial assessment.
In the context of an information war, press workers are often used in dubious transactions, which forces different countries to adopt legislation to restrict freedom of speech. It is worth recalling that the “foreign agents law,” for which Russia is so much criticized, is a mirror copy of a similar law in the United States.
There are also serious doubts about the suitability of Western countries for the role of arbiter that they are trying to take on. In many cases, Western states act similarly, and in some cases even more harshly, than post-Soviet countries.
For example, the Russian dissident artist Pavlensky fled in search of “freedom” from Russia to France, but instead of a Russian prison he ended up in a French one. My colleague, editor of the Lithuanian Internet resource “Socialist Front” Giedrius Garabauskas, has been prosecuted since 2015 by the authorities of the Republic of Lithuania due to the fact that proclamations with anti-NATO content were found in his personal belongings.
Characterizing the situation in Belarus, I would like to note that in the last two decades no journalists have died a violent death in our country; currently there is not a single press worker in prison; in recent years, international monitoring centers have not recorded attacks and violence against media workers . Considering that our country is only 26 years old and not so long ago Belarus was part of the Soviet Union, where there was no developed competitive information environment, this can be called an achievement.
At the same time, in Belarus, like in any other country, there are problems with freedom of speech. However, many of the voiced criticisms are, to put it mildly, not objective,” the expert noted.
Also, according to Shpakovsky, at the conference “the representative of Russia recalled that in the United States since the beginning of the year, 17 journalists have been arrested, 11 attacks by unidentified persons have been recorded, and in 4 cases journalists were detained at the border.”
In addition, the Belarusian political scientist said that contradictions with Latvia were also discussed at the conference.
“Historian Vladimir Simindei recalled the persecution of scientists and journalists in the Republic of Latvia. Official Riga really doesn’t like it when the uncomfortable topic of war crimes by Latvian Nazi formations during the Second World War is raised. In response, criminal cases are opened and decisions are made to ban entry into the territory of Latvia.
By the way, for us, Belarusians, this topic is very difficult, since the criminal activities of the Latvian Nazis against civilians mainly took place on the territory of Belarus.
At the same time, I don’t think that the recognition of crimes can affect modern Belarusian-Latvian relations. Rather, on the contrary, if Riga had shown political courage and prudence, it could have saved modern Latvia from a very unpleasant trail.
However, contrary to common sense, this does not happen. As we know, everything is exactly the opposite: marches of SS legionnaires and attempts in every possible way to retouch their shameful military past,” said Shpakovsky.
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