Taiwan News: Investigative journalist in Belarus faces threats
T he article by Iryna Chalip (Irina Khalip) gave a freezy reminder of late 1990s when Belarusian opposition politicians have been abducted and presumably killed.
The story around US lawyer Emanuel Zeltser is quite mysterious because one can hardly find a motivation for Belarusian KGB to act in the interests of the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky and assist him in getting hands on the legacy of the Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili by again threatening the well-known investigative journalist Iryna Chalip.
It seems an other story where we'll know the truth not earlier than the Belarusian KGB opens its archives years from now.
One sad thing the whole story makes clear is that freedom of press still remains only theory for Belarus, just as five or ten years ago.
An investigative journalist in Belarus says she has received anonymous threats linked to her publication. Irina Khalip says she has received the threats by e-mail, telephone and in a telegram. She said Wednesday that the believes the security agency still going under its Soviet name KGB was involved in the threats. The agency refused to comment on her claim. Khalip said the threats were related to her article in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta about the disputed legacy of late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. // Taiwan News
See also relevant reports in
FT Brussels Blog: Berlusconi, a planetary man of politics, visits Belarus
Business interests and personal sympathy to Alexander Lukashenka have been called by Belarusian analysts the reason for Berlusconi's friendliness and itself the fact of his short visit to Belarus.
Anyway, it was truly a historical event that passed unnoticed: the previous time Belarus has been visited by a leader of a G8 country (except Russia) was Bill Clinton's visit in 1994. It's been fifteen years since then.
It passed largely unnoticed by the outside world, but perhaps the most intriguing event in European foreign policy last week was a visit paid to Belarus by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. The European Union has kept Belarus at arm’s length for years because of the repressive domestic policies of President Alexander Lukashenko. Berlusconi was the first western head of government to go to Minsk for well over a decade.
There was something surreal about the visit. Lukashenko, once dubbed Europe’s last dictator, praised Berlusconi as “a global, planetary man of politics, our friend”. Berlusconi responded: “Thank you, and thanks to your people who, I know, love you, as is demonstrated by the election results which everyone can see.” One can only assume this was an example of Berlusconi’s famous sense of humour.
