BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Polish newspapers black out front pages

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's two leading newspapers blacked out large sections of their front pages Wednesday in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighboring Belarus.

The main pages of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita looked as if a censor had taken a black marker to them, with most text and photographs crossed out. Amnesty International, which led the protest, wrote at the bottom of both front pages: "This is what freedom of speech looks like in Belarus."

Amnesty also ran an advertisement in Rzeczpospolita calling on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to observe human rights treaties protecting freedom of expression.

Polish Parliament Speaker Marek Jurek supported Amnesty's campaign and called for international rights to be observed by Minsk.

"We must take strong action in defense of the accepted international principles and we must demand that they are observed in Belarus and in the nations that have relations with it," Jurek said on state radio.

The U.S. government has been a vocal critic of Lukashenko, whose government fears opposition attempts to foment political change in the tightly controlled country. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called Lukashenko's regime "the last dictatorship in the center of Europe."

Source:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Poland_Belarus_Media.html