On 20 April it is 6 months since our colleague, a journalist on the independent newspaper Salidarnasts, a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Vieranika Charkasava was murdered. On the eve of the occasion the Belarusian Association of Journalists staged a press-briefing attended by Vieranika’s family and colleagues. (26-APR-2005)

Andrei Bastuniets, the deputy chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said at the briefing that a week ago BAJ addressed the Procurator’s Office of Belarus asking for a special press-conference, where the officials would inform the journalists of the investigation progression. However, according to the press-secretary of this agency, the Procurator’s Office handed over to the First National TV Channel all the information it had in the case, and so had nothing to communicate to other media.

Vieranika’s mother, Dyiana Charkasava, said she got the impression the officials had not been able to progress in the case beyond the starting point: just as before the investigators argue that they have two suspects – the 15 year old son and step-father of the journalist, and keep saying that the relatives have been interfering with the investigation. At the same time, the regulation that cancelled the undertaking not to leave the city says that the investigation authorities had not obtained any objective evidence implicating them in the crime.

Anton Filimonau, Vieranika Charkasava’s son, is still in Moscow, where his father had taken him, fearing that the officials would put the son to forced clinical psychiatric examination. T

Aliaksandr Starykievich, the senior editor of the Salidarnasts, which employed Vieranika Charkasava in the past few years, says that quite a few colleagues of Vieranika take an indifferent approach to this case looks the saddest thing of all. “When they murdered Gongadze in the Ukraine, this continued to be a major topic in the Ukrainian newspapers for several following years”, underscores the senior editor of the Salidarnasts. He is convinced that the murder of Vieranika Charkasava can be compared to the disappearance of the ORT cameraman Dzmitry Zavadski in 2000. A.Starykievich believes that the attention this case may receive from the media can help find the actual perpetrators of the crime, and prevent such crimes from happening in the future.

Press Service of Belarusian Association of Journalists