Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations
ÁÒÈÉ×/archive: www.index.org.ru/cjes/
Russian Union of Journalists: www.ruj.ru
BELARUS/RUSSIA
STATEMENT ON DISAPPEARANCE OF DMITRY ZAVADSKY, ORT CAMERAMAN, IN MINSK
New York, July 10---Dmitry Zavadsky,Áa Belarusian cameraman for ORT, the
Russian public television
station, has been missing since he failed to appear at a meeting on July 7 at
the Minsk airport, where he had
intended to pick up Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian journalist now working for
Russia's NTV in Moscow,
Belarusian colleagues said today. The Belarusian Transport Prosecutor's
Office has opened a criminal case
in connection with the disappearance, and friends and family are searching
for Zavadsky.
The International League for Human Rights, an NGO defending human rights and
the rule of law around the
world, expressed grave concern about Zavadsky's disappearance. "We call on
the Belarusian Prosecutor
General, the Interior Minister, the Chair of the Committee for State
Security,Áand the Chair of the National
Security Council to take personal responsibility for ordering a good-faith,
thorough investigation for
Zavadsky and other disappeared persons in Belarus," said Catherine A.
Fitzpatrick, executive director of the
League.
BelaPAN, the independent wire service, said today that Zavadsky's wife told
reporters that her husband and
Pavel Sheremet had returned from Chechnya recently, where they shot a
documentary called "The Chechen
Diary" depicting the horrors of combat. Immediately upon their return, an
unknown man began to call at
their home number, insisting on a meeting with Zavadsky. He refused, however,
suspecting that the
Belarusian secret services, who closely monitor the independent media, were
behind the caller.
Belarusian journalists were puzzled by theÁapparent singling out of Zavadsky,
who, together with Pavel
Sheremet, was believed to favor anti-Chechen coverage of the conflict, unlike
some in the Russian
journalists' community who have been critical of the Russian government's
prosecution of the war.
Zavadsky was also apparently not involved in Minsk opposition groups.
Zavadsky has reportedly been under surveillance by Belarusian secret police,
still known as the KGB, since
his pre-trial jailing together with Pavel Sheremet, former Minsk ORT bureau
chief, in 1999, when he was
handed an 18-month suspended sentence for alleged illegally crossing the
Belarus-Lithuania during the
filming of a documentary on smuggling.
Four opposition leaders disappeared in 1999; three are still missing and one
has surfaced in London,
prompting Belarusian officialdom to scorn claims of secret police abduction,
and to discount reports of
Zavadsky's disappearance. But opposition leaders and human rights groups have
dismissed as absurd
yesterday's statement by Vladimir Zametalin, first deputy chief of the
Presidential Administration, that the
Belarusian opposition arranged the kidnapping of Dmitry Zavadsky.
"If a person already under surveillance attempts to go into hiding due to
enormous fear, and has not been
abducted, that does not change the seriousness of the case," said Catherine
A. Fitzpatrick. "The opposition
has no motivation to abduct people. In each caseÁof last year's
disappearances, the opposition figures were
under regular KGB surveillance. We urge the security authorities to come
forward with what they know."
"We also urge all parties involved in investigating Zavadsky's disappearance
to refrain from speculation on
the content of his character or the content of his broadcasts, which may have
been controversial for some.
Such second-guessing has slowed down the search for disappeared persons in
the past. The point is to
look for Zavadsky in earnest before the trail goes cold because no public
figure is safe when a journalist or a
politician can disappear in broad daylight," Fitzpatrick emphasized.
The League called on the U.S. Embassy and the OSCE AMG to make public
statements on the Zavadsky
case as quickly as possible, to interview all those concerned and publicize
their findings, and also to raise
the case of Dmitry Zavadsky in bilateral meetings with the Russian Federation
government.
"In this climate of terror and intimidation, clearly it is impossible to
conduct free and fair parliament elections
this fall, which require freedom of association and assembly for NGOs and
parties and freedom for the
independent media as the fundamental background," noted Fitzpatrick. "We call
on international bodies
such as OSCE and the Council of Europe to refrain from sending observation
teams to this fall's illegitimate
balloting exercise, which will only serve to legitimize it, until the
conditions set by these bodies are met,
investigations are made for the disappeared, and there is an end to
government persecution for a significant
period before the elections."
--
Best regards,
Oleg Panfilov
director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations
phone/fax: +7 095 201-7626
'hot line' phone: +7 095 201-3550
address:room 320, 4 Zubovsky blv.Moscow 119021 Russia
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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