Belsat TV director has been designated the European of the Year 2013 by the Reader’s Digest, Europe’s biggest-selling magazine. Since 1996, the editors of the 21 European editions of the Reader’s Digest have elected the “European of the Year” from the ranks of celebrities and public figures who best represent European traditions and values.
The winners’ list includes the names of 18 outstanding Europeans, i.e. Peter Eigen, Transparency International founder; Simon Pánek, the executive director of the humanitarian organization People in Need; children’s doctor Leonid Roshal.
Handind out the award, Raimo Moysa, the Reader’s Digest editor-in chief, remembered meeting a young Polish family thirty years ago. The couple was going back from Stockholm and having a typewriter of the latest design. The woman feared that the typewriter would be seized by border officers… This woman was Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy. According to the editor-in-chief, when the winner was being selected, he dipped up the story came to him as an example of the importance of the word and distribution of information in the development of democracy.
Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy stressed that the award is not only for her but for whole Belsat TV. She quoted famous Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovskiy that one would rather finance opposition activity than later purchase B2 bombers and eliminate the damage caused by them. The winner expressed hope that the award would lead Belsat TV to the European form where the independent channel could fight for its further existence.
Jan Cisek, a representative of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, congratulated Mrs Romaszewska-Guzy on behalf of the Foreign Minister and pointed out that Poland undertook the commitment to back Belarusian strivings to come closer to Europe. He mentioned both the implementation of the Eastern Partnership policy and Belsat’s work as an instance of such support.
