OSCE Media Freedom Representative calls off visit to Minsk

VIENNA, 26 August 2003 - The OSCE's media watchdog, Freimut Duve, has been forced to cancel a visit to Belarus, planned for 1 and 2 September, because the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not given him and his senior adviser visas.

Mr. Duve, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, who leaves the post at the end of this year, was invited two months ago by the Head of the OSCE Office in Minsk, Ambassador Eberhard Heyken, to hold a farewell meeting in Minsk with journalists and media NGOs who are facing new problems and an ever-worsening media situation.

The OSCE Office in Minsk had arranged a two-day programme for the Representative at the Mission headquarters which included a reception for journalists, a presentation on OSCE commitments on freedom of the media and a press conference. Mr. Duve had also agreed to call on the newly-appointed Minister of Information.

"I greatly regret that I will not be allowed to come to Belarus on 1 September to say farewell to the many courageous Belarusian journalists whom I have had the honour to frequently and publicly support in my capacity as the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media", he said today.

Mr. Duve last visited Minsk in 1999 as OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. He had planned to visit again in March 2001 but was asked by the then Foreign Minister of Belarus, Mikhail Khvostov, to postpone to the end of April for scheduling reasons.

That visit never took place because the Government of Belarus denied a visa to the senior adviser who was to accompany him, an act which Mr. Duve described at the time as a "severe interference in the independence of his OSCE institution by a participating State."