30. 07. 2005

EU INDEPENDENT RADIO FOR BELARUS

MINSK, July 30, 2005 – The European Union will respond to the appeal of Poland authorities to financially support radio and TV programs for Belarus for better promotion of objective and uncensored information. The European Union’s external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said it was part of EU’s striving to provide uncensored information to the citizens of this country. Poland’s foreign minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld wrote to the European Commission on Friday calling on the EU to urge Belarus to respect the rights of Polish minority there. Poland has demanded the problem to be discussed at the next EU meeting in September. “The European Commission can support the non-government organisations but not political parties. We never do that”, the External Relations Spokesperson for the European Commission Amadeu Altafaj Tardio told the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. The reasons for this were new strong pressures of the Belarus authorities on the Union of Poles, an organisation representing the country’s large ethnic Polish population. The tension between the two neighboring countries originated in mid May and since then both countries have expelled three diplomats. This week, Poland has called off their ambassador from the consultations in Minsk, also considering the option of proclaiming Belarus ambassador in Warsaw a persona non grata. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has accused the Polish community and Warsaw of plotting to overthrow him. The Belarusian police on Wednesday had stormed the headquarters of the Union of Poles, throwing out the new legally elected management, at the same time briefly detaining two journalists of the Polish daily Gazeta Vyborcza. Hans Gert Petering, leader of the largest fraction in the European Parliament, the European National Party, has reported on the attempt of the Lukashenko’s regime to destroy the largest non-governmental organisation free of government control. Reporters without Borders have protested over the harassment of Polish journalists and pressures on Polish minority media in Belarus, which counts around 400.000 members. This media organisation urged the government to stop repressions of minority media, since “they must not be the victims of tensions in relations of the two countries”. Polish Parliament Speaker Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz urged the EU to condemn the violation of democratic standards and minority rights in Belarus, and to assess this new crisis of Polish-Belarus relations.