Another prominent politician, Siarhiej Antonchyk, was thrown to prison. He had been a person behind regional recruitment for Kazulin way before the presidential campaign started (read more on him at br23.net).
The authorities tighten their grip, as we count down those few remaining days to Day X.
Meanwhile, today’s Guardian published an article of Jonathan Steele, who blamed the West for deciding the winner before the vote, and US and European media for biased and partisan coverage.
Steele noted that there was a similar conformism little more than a year ago in Ukraine, when one side was glorified to the skies, as if only a tiny minority of benighted Sovietera automatons did not support the pro-western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. His opponent actually got 44% of the vote, and may even emerge with the highest number of votes in Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in two weeks.
Steele reckons that there was no much of a reason for Belarusians to want Lukashenka out of office, and sure, it is fun to read his argumentation.
Another similar article, but much more straightforwardly pro-Lukashenka, was published on a popular African website Mathaba News Network. Entitled “Why the Anglo-Americans Don’t Like Belarus Democracy,” the article offers a shining picture of Belarus and its president:

    A.G. Lukashenko is notable for his in-depth understanding of events, hard work, sense of duty, realism, fairness and fidelity to principle. He openly voices his opinions, even to the audience not inclined to agree. When being deputy of the BSSR Supreme Soviet he was the only one to vote against the Belovezh Agreements on the abolishment of the USSR, he was exposing corrupt top officials, boldly, without being afraid of conspiracies and cavils.

Both articles can be a good starting point if you want to fully understand the Belarus’ phenomenon, as both authors offer the other vision, which in no way should be excluded from our attention.
But one of the weakest points of both narratives is their authors’ being at a great physical distance from Belarus.
Steele mentions that he hasn’t been in Belarus for 10 years, but residents he spoke to on the phone, as well as western visitors, reported that most people were satisfied with their living standards.
In most cases, in order to write something unbiased, many-sided and essential it is necessary to book a ticket and come to visit modern-day Belarus, and once there, not to talk to the selected few, and hang out at the expensive hotels, but to travel a bit, and to chat with ordinary people. Their views, problems, attitudes, and perspectives may be very helpful in understanding Belarus and its realities. Economical statistical data, taken from the official sources, leave out many crucial things, which are always somewhat deeper than the inanities showcased on the surface.
Few European and American reporters actually do come to Belarus. Of course, there may be factual, spelling errors in their stories, sometimes they do fail to cover the other side, which is no good, but they try to be in the field and understand the problem from within. Unfortunately, some of them are not allowed to step foot on Belarusian soil any more, like Tobias Lungval, who wrote an in-depth book on Belarus and keeps up a blog on our political agenda.
And being a journalist within Belarus is a tough job, I should say. You might get killed, injured, or imprisoned if you write something close to what Steele called “partisan journalism.”
The authors of both articles accuse Western media of biased reporting of our elections, but they forget or ignore that Belarus’ regime cracked down on the independent media, and Belarusians have great difficulties in accessing any unofficial viewpoints. Even few appearances of Milinkevich and Kazulin on state TV and radio, regional meetings, and door-to-door campaigning made their ratings surge. OSCE noted that around 90% of airtime was given to covering Lukashenka’s campaign. The remaining few instances were mostly negatives about the rivals.
Steele: Contrary to claims that Lukashenko’s repression has produced an “information black hole”, the choice of news is wider than in 1996. The EU-funded EuroNews channel is available on cable, which millions of people have, and access to uncensored websites is easy in internet clubs and cafes or at home.
As a counterargument, let me quote the yesterday’s Belarusian Association of Journalists press release:

    THE PRINTING OF “ZHODA” IS SUSPENDED

    March 9, 2006

    The Ministry of Information sent a suit to the Superior Court asking to close down the “Zhoda” newspaper. The edition’s editor-in-chief Aliaksey Karol got to know about it from an official letter from the court. The printing of “Zhoda” has already been suspended.

    The suit is dated March 6 and it says that the reason for closing down “Zhoda” is the fact that it has many times violated art. 5 of the Law on Mass Media (the newspaper was warned about it on November 9 and February 23). Furthermore, the Ministry asked to suspend the printing of the newspaper even before the final decision of the court because during this time “the defendant might violate the law again”.

    On March 7 the judge Aksana Mihnuik decided to grant the petition of the Ministry and suspend the printing of “Zhoda” “until the final decision was taken”. The preliminary hearing is assigned for March 15.

    The BAJ Press Service

And it is one of many cases of independent media rows narrowing down in Belarus. As for Euronews, DW and other “foreign voices” – few Belarusians listen to them. Much less than needed to get opposition’s messages across. So far, European Radio for Belarus, DW, and RFE\RL can be heard on AM, not the most popular waves for a station, and streamed online. As for internet access, if it was all right with it, why had Belarus landed down in the list of the worst enemies of the internet?
And speaking of partisan journalism, isn’t it what Guardian was often accused of?