Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy answered RFE/RL audience’s questions.
Belarus is not a priority strand of the EU policy, the director of the independent channel stressed in her interview to Radio Liberty. Moreover, European countries lack some experience of supporting democracy in authoritarian states: “The USA had such experience in their time, but Europe misses it. Such projects as Belsat often fall victim to quiet diplomacy or Realpolitik”.
But for financial backing of the Polish side the channel would face unconceivable difficulties, Mrs Romaszewska-Guzy notes. According to her, there is no reasonable cause to believe that a lot of countries are eager to give a helping hand to Belarus and independent channel Belsat. “Furthermore, nobody has thrown out any hints either in official or even private conversations that anyone would increase funding for Belsat if I resigned. On the contrary, it was me who raised the best part of our budget,” the Director pointed out.
Things to come
Responding to our viewers disturbed by the reduction of airtime, Agnieszka Romeszewska-Guzy said that the channel is to get the production and broadcast of information programs back on track on January 3, 2013 though nobody ensures that the fund will run to the channel’s performance during the next year: “Now we are working on increasing on-line broadcasting time. We are also going to ease viewing and downloading our programs”.
Belsat TV intends to make 14 new documentaries for series “Unknown Belarus” and a number of reports as part of project “Unedited” in 2013. At the beginning of January the channel is about to present film “Spring” telling the story of Ales Bialiatski. Access to our online programs is sure to be increased; Silverlight technology will be replaced by HTML5, which will put online viewing in a more convenient form.
Belsat
