p2pnet.net News:- The Belarusian secret police, the KGB, raided three apartments in Minsk and the western city of Grodno, on August 16.

The flats, allegedly belonging to young members of the Third Way opposition movement who create satirical, animated cartoons (in Flash format) for Internet distribution, says Reporters Without Borders.

The site went up a year ago and published two-minute-long animated cartoons satirizing Belarusian politicians, opposition leaders and ordinary people, says RWB. Some of the cartoons were about [president Alexander] Lukashenko and electoral fraud, Belarus’ isolation and Lukashenko’s well-known fondness for sports. The Third Way members drew the cartoons at home and circulated them among themselves by e-mail.

The KGB confiscated at least 12 computers and material used to produced the cartoons, and interrogated three Third Way members.

And the incident is, yet another example of the authoritarianism prevailing in Belarus,” says RWB. “Any sarcasm and criticism of the authorities is severely punished. Three journalists have been given prison terms for ‘insulting the president’ in recent years and it would be intolerable if these young Internet users were now to suffer the same fate.”

Pavel Morozov, 26, one of those allegedly in charge of the site http://mult.3dway.org, said he and two colleagues were questioned for five hours and were accused of besmirching Lukashenko`s honour, says RWB.

Morozov was told not to leave Minsk.

The three who were questioned are for the time being treated by the authorities as witnesses in the investigation, but it is likely that they could be charged soon, in which case they could face up to five years in prison under article 367 of the criminal code, says RWB.

If there’s something you think we should know, contact us – tips[at]p2pnet.net

See:-
Reporters Without Borders – KGB censors satirical Internet cartoons, August 18, 2005

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2005 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 4711 times