The Human Rights House Foundation is immensely pleased to announce that Nasha Niva, the last independent Belarusian language weekly, has been awarded the Freedom of Expression Foundation / Zeit Stiftung´s joint Free Press of Eastern Europe Award. Nasha Niva´s editor Andrej Dynko, right, well known to the Human Rights House Network, is in Norway to receive the award on behalf of his newspaper. (21-JUNE-07)
 
Based on the nomination (below) and the invitation from the Freedom of Expression Foundation to the award ceremony, this article has been written by HRH F / Niels Jacob Harbitz. Photo of Dynko: HRH F / Baard Brinchmann Løvvig.

Together with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Norwegian PEN and the Rafto Human Rights House, HRH F has nominated Nasha Niva for this prize for the last consecutive four years. Despite our nomination´s failure to bring Nasha Niva this highly prestigeous international recognition, we have always been strongly encouraged to try again, indicating that Nasha Niva has been a strong candidate throughout. More importantly, though, our nominations have been driven by the necessity set by the down-spiralling trend of the Belarusian freedom of expression and general political situation, in which independent media have found it ever more difficult to survive. This prize is a major moral boost and a clear acknowledgement from the international freedom of expression community that Nasha Niva´s very existence is in itself an achievement.

Please read the Norwegian Helsinki Committee´s, The Norwegian PEN´s, the Rafto Human Rights House´s and the Human Rights House Foundation´s joint nomination:  

Nominee:  Naša Niva, Belarusian newspaper and its editor, Andrej Dynko

The Human Rights House Foundation, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Norwegian PEN and the Rafto Human Rights House nominate the independent Belarusian newspaper Naša Niva now for the last three years. This year, we once again nominate the same weekly newspaper and its editor, Andrej Dynko, to the Förderpreise Junge Presse Osteuropas. We do so for the following reasons:

Most free and independent newspapers in Belarus have, by now, been closed down, either directly, by order of the authorities, or indirectly, from various restrictions, among them quarantines of different lengths, imposed upon them by the authorities.
 
Naša Niva’s editor, Andrej Dynko (31), was appointed in September 2000. During his time as Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian chapter of PEN (Poets, Editors, Novelists) International from 2002—2004, he took active part in the annual meetings of the Human Rights House Network. Dynko’s last visit to the Human Rights House in Oslo took place in October 2005, when he gave the keynote speech at a seminar on freedom of expression in Belarus. As usual, Dynko provided the audience with an in-depth analysis of the Lukashenko regime’s repression and warned the western world about the up-coming presidential election.

The winner of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee “Sakharov Freedom Prize” in 2006, the Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bielatsky has characterised Naša Niva as a unique voice and the most important newspaper for academics and intellectuals. Naša Niva focuses on politics and culture, both nationally and internationally. As the major independent newspaper entirely written in the Belarusian language, Naša Niva has become an important symbol of the national tradition. Since Naša Niva has been one of the few weekly newspapers left in Belarus for open exchange of opinions, beliefs and information, the authorities have tried to close it down several times in recent years. Belarusian KGB has raided the newspaper office many times. In 1996, Slavamir Adamovich, one of Naša Niva’s journalists, became Belarus’s first political prisoner, spending ten months in prison for publishing material critical of the country’s authorities. Legal proceedings were also fabricated against the paper as a whole, both in 1998, 2000 and 2002. Towards the end of December 2004, a direct, unspecified threat from KGB forced Dynko into temporary exile in Lithuania.

When the Human Rights House Foundation and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee visited Naša Niva’s office in Minsk in January 2006, the distribution of the paper was banned under various pretexts by the state-owned distribution agencies. As a consequence of this, the print-run was reduced from 10.000 to 6.000 copies.  Nevertheless, Dynko enthusiastically explained to us how his own family, his staff and their families coordinated the distribution by themselves to the various regions of Belarus. He was also making plans for how Naša Niva could function without its main editor: “When I am arrested,” he said, “I have to make sure  the regional coordinators are able to edit the newspaper themselves.”

On 21 March, during the post-election protests following the severe rigging of the 19 March Presidential elections, Andrej Dynko was detained by the police while getting off a bus at Kastrychnicka Square in the centre of Minsk. The following day, he was convicted for “swearing / foul language” and was sentenced to 10 days’ imprisonment. During his time in prison, Dynko wrote a diary, which has since been widely published internationally by several newspapers.

On 10 April, after a considerable delay, the Ministry of Communications did not comply with Naša Niva’s request to acquire a license for independent subscription. On the contrary, the letter sent by the Minsk Executive Committee’s Department of Ideology, read: “… the allocation of Naša Niva in Minsk is inappropriate …” because “… it has been ascertained … that on 22 March, the editor-in-chief of  Naša Niva was put under administrative arrest for 10 days…”.

In effect, this meant the official banning of the newspaper. The authorities’ attempt to close down Naša Niva came on the eve of its 90th anniversary. However, attempts to shut it down are a mainstay of the newspaper’s history. In 1915, the very first edition of Naša Niva was closed in Vilnius. Despite the difficulties Naša Niva has faced in the last year Andrej Dynko continues to serve as its outspoken editor. He has also improved the newspaper’s electronic version significantly so as to facilitate easier downloading and broader distribution.

The Human Rights House Foundation, The Rafto Human Rights House, Norwegian PEN and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee jointly believe that in Naša Niva, the jury of the Förderpreise Junge Presse Osteuropas has found not only a worthy candidate in its own right, but also one that is currently in increasingly desperate need of the international recognition, attention and moral support that such a prize may generate. Furthermore, given the fact that the human rights situation in Belarus has been deteriorating now for several years, the signal effect, towards Belarusian authorities and the international community alike, of a human rights related press prize given to an independent Belarusian newspaper right now would be tremendous. It may, in fact, serve to save one of the very few remaining alternative voices in Europe’s last dictatorship. Courageously continuing his struggle for democracy, freedom of expression and the free use of the Belarusian language, Andrej Dynko’s position within Belarusian society has risen to something far more than an ordinary newspaper editor’s. Today, he is recognized internationally also as a human rights defender and a spokesperson for his countries thousands of oppressed.

Please find recent issues of Naša Niva, and also Dynko’s prison diary, enclosed. Please also visit Naša Niva’s website at www.nn.by. For further information on the suppression of Naša Niva, please also visit www.nhc.no and www.humanrightshouse.org.  

Maria Dahle                                     Carl Morten Iversen
Executive Director                           Secretary General                    
Human Rights House Foundation      Norwegian PEN   

 

Bjørn Engesland                               Therese Jebsen
General Secretary                            Executive Director
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee   Rafto Human Rights House