The worst was on 18 September, when seven journalists (Aliaksandr Barazenka, Sergei Grits, Vasil Fiadosenka, Tatsiana Ziankovich, Vasil Padabed, Dzmitry Rudakou and Aliaxey Akulau) who covered a peaceful street performance of opposition in Minsk were seized Grits, an Associated Press photographer, received a serious facial injury during the attack.
![illusion games website censorship illusion games website censorship](https://gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/pc/koikatsu-20.png)
There were several instances of physical attacks and detentions of journalists.
![illusion games website censorship illusion games website censorship](https://unnecessaryexclamationmark.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/censmain.jpg)
“The purpose of the bleak campaign coverage and the censorship of the candidates’ media appearances was to undermine electoral competition and depoliticise the elections,” the BAJ report (pdf) states. According to the chair of the United Civil Party, Anatol Labiedzka, 32 addresses by the party’s candidates were not broadcast and state-owned papers refused to print 11 of its candidates programmes. The official explanation from Lidzija Yarmoshyna, the CEC chair, was that airtime was dedicated “to campaigning, not boycotting”. No appeal for a boycott of the elections ever appeared in the state media. Debates were never live but always pre-recorded.
Illusion games website censorship tv#
There were cases of direct censorship as state TV refused to broadcast candidates’ statements. “Even when we had election debates on TV, it was obvious the candidates themselves did not really care about them.”Ī BAJ analysis of election media coverage shows that the state media, which are dominant in the country, misrepresented the campaign, focusing on the Central Election Commission rather than candidates or their programmes. “We don’t have public politics in Belarus,” said Zhanna Litivina, chair of the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ). If ordinary people boycotted the election it had little to do with activities of oppositional groups and a lot to do with a general sense that the National Assembly has no real influence because of the overwhelming power of the president. The disunity of the opposition meant that it failed to send a clear message to voters. So why not agree about a common strategy from the very beginning?” “Even those people who called for participating in the campaign until the bitter end did so only in order to use the opportunity for publicity. “All of the opposition was really in favour of a boycott,” said Uladzimir Matskevich, chair of the coordination committee of the National Civil Society Forum. The lack of unity of approach among the opposition was criticised by civil society groups. Some opposition parties ran candidates all the way through to election day - but predictably without any success. Others, including the United Civil Party and the Belarus National Front, decided to get candidates registered to give themselves a platform but later withdrew, denouncing the election as a fraud. Some parties - European Belarus, the Christian Democrats and the Belarusian Movement - announced from the start that they were not participating in the farce. Most of the democratic opposition boycotted the election in different ways. There are no surprises in the composition of the new parliament. The authorities falsified the turnout to give the elections the veneer of legitimacy. Although the Central Election Commission claimed that 72.3 per cent of voters went to the polling stations, independent observers say that turnout was no more than 35-40 per cent. Journalists joke that they are so transparent that they are almost invisible. The Belarus authorities claim that elections in Belarus are transparent. A large part of the population shares that view.
![illusion games website censorship illusion games website censorship](https://tnimage.s3.hicloud.net.tw/photos/2020/04/15/1586940578-5e96caa243db7.png)
Most observers say that there are no genuine elections in Belarus, and that the parliament is insignificant because the power of the president is almost complete. But you can’t really say that members of the parliament were elected. Last Sunday the people of Belarus learnt the new composition of the lower chamber of its parliament.
![illusion games website censorship illusion games website censorship](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/6052bec36884c20699507293/master/pass/210329_r38110.jpg)
Alexander Lukashenko turns up to cast his vote in Belarus’s parliamentary election, accompanied by his son Nikolay