Lukashenka removes notorious heads of state-run media. For further promotion?


Pavel Yakubovich (L) and Henadz Davydzka (R)

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has appointed new heads of the Belarusian TV and Radio Company (BT), the SB Belarus Segodnya newspaper and TV station STV.

Ivan Eysmant, Dzmitry Zhuk and Ihar Lutski have replaced Henadz Davydzka, Pavel Yakubovich and Yury Kaziyatka respectively.

“In fact, thousands of personnel decisions have been made in this room. But I feel rather uncomfortable today. Often I have to replace people because they do not cope with their work. Sometimes they are transferred to other jobs. But you will replace very good heads of mass media outlets Davydzka, Yakubovich and Kaziyatka. They are great people, and we cannot lose contact with them,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes Lukashenka.

Former BT Chairman Henadz Davydzka was a commentator in the propaganda film Square. Metal Against Glass which featured the regime’s version of the post-election protests in Minsk on December 19, 2010. In the wake of spring protests in 2017, the BT released Call A Friend and White Legion – Black Souls. Notably, recordings of opposition politicians’ private telephone conversations were used in the films. Davydzka repeatedly attacked independent media; according to him, Belsat TV news story about Lukashenka’s secret residence was fake.

“Belsat is working for the collapse of the Belarusian statehood, it provides fakes and lies,” Davydzka said in BT show Club of Editors in December, 2017.

Pavel Yakubovich has been Editor-in-chief of the Belarus Segodnya (former Soviet Byelorussia) for 22 years. The newspaper fully supports the policy pursued by Lukashenka and makes little secret of its cooperation with the KGB. Last year Yakubovich headed the public council at the Ministry of Interior.

The newspaper has the so-called investigative journalism department. In the spring of 2017, they wrote the scandalous article Their Name Is Legion, in which anonymous authors make evidence given by some defendants in the White Legion case public. On November 30, the case was closed, but the newspaper failed to offer its apology to the people they had smeared. As for Belsat TV, Mr Yakubovich called the channel ‘useless’ and ‘non-thing’.

The Belarusian leader also promised to consider placing Davydzka and Yakubovich in Council of the Republic (the upper house of the parliament).

belsat.eu

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