SARAJEVO -- A Bosnian court has released the former coach of Croatian soccer club Dinamo Zagreb shortly after he was held on an international arrest warrant, his lawyer told RFE/RL.

Zoran Mamic resigned from his job in March after being sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for fraud involving player transfers.

But he then failed to turn up to start his prison term and fled to neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mamic, who holds dual Croatian and Bosnian citizenship, was detained in the southwestern Bosnian town of Medjugorje on May 19 on an Interpol arrest warrant at the request of Croatia.

But he was later released after a court in Sarajevo denied Zagreb's request that he be remanded in custody, according to his lawyer, Zdravko Rajic.

However, Rajic said the court confiscated Mamic's passport and other personal documents and banned him from leaving the country.

The lawyer said his client's possible extradition was not discussed during the hearing because Croatia had not yet sent an official request for it.

Mamic's brother, Zdravko, served as Dinamo Zagreb executive director before fleeing to Bosnia in 2018 after being handed 6 1/2 years behind bars in the case's first-instance verdict.

Bosnian authorities have rejected a request by Croatia to extradite Zdravko Mamic.

The Mamic brothers were found guilty of siphoning off cash from player transfers that cost Dinamo more than 15 million euros ($18 million) and the state 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million).

With reporting by AFP

PODGORICA – Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic has warned that he will not sign changes to the law governing prosecution appointments that were earlier adopted by parliament, in the latest clash between the head of state and the government that took office last year.

"Today, I will return the law for a new vote in parliament," Djukanovic told a press conference on May 19, saying that the amendments would endanger the constitutional and legal system of Montenegro.

"Fundamental democratic principles and Montenegro"s partnership with the European Union are being destroyed," he added.

Parliament speaker Aleksa Becic called Djukanovic's move "political obstruction."

Under Montenegro’s constitution, the president can send a bill back to parliament to be reconsidered but is obliged to sign it if parliament adopts it again.

Lawmakers on May 12 adopted amendments to the Law on the State Prosecution Service despite concerns raised by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission of constitutional experts, who warned that the changes could make prosecutors more susceptible to political influence.

Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), the main opposition party in parliament, has boycotted the work of the chamber in protest.

Proponents of the amendments argue that a change in personnel in the Prosecutor's Office is necessary in order to achieve results in the fight against corruption and organized crime.

The DPS was ousted from power by a coalition led by the Democratic Front following parliamentary elections in August 2020.

The president already confronted the new governing coalition in January when he rejected bills adopted by parliament, including amendments to a controversial law on religion.

Russia says it has proposed setting up a joint commission to demarcate the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, amid renewed Yerevan-Baku tensions over the past week over an alleged Azerbaijani military incursion.

Armenia has accused Azerbaijani troops of crossing several kilometers into its Syunik and Gegharkunik provinces and trying to stake a claim to territory.

Azerbaijan insists that its troops did not cross into Armenia and simply took up positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier that were not accessible in winter months.

The border dispute emerged months after the two South Caucasus neighbors ended a six-week war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The conflict, which claimed some 6,000 lives, ended in November with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire that saw Armenia ceding swaths of territory that ethnic Armenians had controlled for decades.

Speaking during a visit to Tajikistan on May 19, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had proposed setting up a joint Armenian-Azerbaijani border commission, with Russia possibly participating as a "consultant" or "mediator."

The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, confirmed the Russian proposal.

"In response to it, the Armenian side has stressed the need for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani forces from Armenia's sovereign territory before the launch of such work," Grigorian said. "Only after that would conditions be created for such discussions."

Lavrov presented the Russian proposal during a meeting with his counterparts from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.

Armenia has appealed to the Russian-led grouping to hold consultations on its border dispute with Azerbaijan. Besides Armenia and Russia, the grouping also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

SEE ALSO:

Armenia Turns To Russian-Led CSTO Amid Border Standoff With Azerbaijan

On May 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin held separate calls with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

"The Russian side will continue mediation efforts and consultative assistance aimed at reaching an agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the launch of the process of delimiting and demarcating the state border," according to a readout of the call with Aliyev published by the Kremlin.

Putin and Pashinian "showed an interest in the earliest possible resolution of the border incident through negotiations," the Kremlin said in a separate statement.

The Armenian prime minister's office said Pashinian thanked Russia for its efforts aimed at strengthening peace and stability in the region.

Russian military officials have participated in a series of negotiations between Armenian and Azerbaijani defense officials to try resolve the dispute, without leading to any concrete result.

The Armenian Defense Ministry warned on May 19 that, if no negotiated settlement is reached "within a reasonable time frame," Yerevan would reserve the right to resolve the issue "by force."

Russia deployed peacekeepers around Nagorno-Karabakh last year to help enforce the cease-fire.

Moscow has strong ties and a mutual defense pact with Armenia, where it has a military base, but is also on friendly terms with Azerbaijan.

With reporting by Reuters and Armenpress

CORRECTION: This article has been amended to clarify which countries are currently members of the CSTO.

MOSCOW -- A well-known Russian video blogger and political activist has been handed a five-year suspended prison sentence for an online post that criticized the government and urged people to attend unsanctioned anti-government rallies.

Nikolai Platoshkin was also fined 700,000 rubles ($9,500) by a Moscow court on May 19 in what human rights defenders denounced as part of the authorities' "harsher" crackdown aimed at silencing critical views ahead of parliamentary elections in September.

A former diplomat, Platoshkin was placed under house arrest in June after investigators charged him with calling for unsanctioned rallies and mass disorder. He pleaded not guilty.

Platoshkin, 55, tried to get elected to parliament's lower chamber as a candidate for the Communist Party in the past. He is well-known for his pro-communist views. Between 1987 and 2006, he worked at diplomatic missions in Germany and the United States.

More recently, he has headed a political movement called For A New Socialism. His YouTube commentaries on Russian politics have garnered thousands of views.

Amnesty International has recognized Platoshkin as a prisoner of conscience, calling the sentence against him "another nail in the coffin for the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association in Russia."

"The case was clearly fabricated to prevent him from participating in public life and punish him for daring to criticize Putin's stranglehold on power," Amnesty's Moscow director, Natalya Zviagina, said in a statement.

Senior diplomats from multiple countries have reported progress in talks to revive the 2015 accord on Iran’s nuclear weapons and persuade the United States to rejoin the landmark agreement.

Negotiators held a new round of discussions on May 19 in Vienna to try and find common ground between Tehran and Washington and renew the deal, which was put on hold in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said there had been "concrete results" and that he had hope a resolution may come soon.

"I cannot predict how it will end up, because ultimately the results of the negotiations will be assessed again in the respective capitals and then approved or not," he said.

"But our goal is to achieve a result in the negotiations in the next two weeks and thus create the conditions for the U.S. to return to this agreement," he added. He did not give details of where progress had been made.

Enrique Mora, the EU official attending the talks, said he was "quite sure" an agreement would be reached as the negotiations adjourned for a week.

Russia's envoy, Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Twitter that a deal was "within reach." Ulyanov said he hoped that next week would be the final round.

Because the United States is currently out of the deal, there is no American representation at the talks. But diplomats were shuttling between the Iranian side and a delegation from Washington that was present in Vienna.

SEE ALSO:

Incident At Natanz Complicates Attempts To Revive Iranian Nuclear Deal

Ahead of the May 19 talks, Iran's delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, acknowledged that there had been good progress, though several key issues needed further assessment.

The negotiations were focused on creating a road map for Washington to lift the sanctions that were reimposed by the Trump administration. The talks are also aimed at getting Tehran to reinstate restrictions on its nuclear program.

Under the accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran had pledged to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for an easing of international sanctions. But Trump called the pact flawed and said it needed to be renegotiated.

Iran reacted by enriching uranium to a greater purity, stockpiling more than allowed, and introducing more advanced centrifuges -- things that were blocked under the original deal.

Tehran also pushed the remaining parties in the deal -- France, Britain, Russia, and China -- for economic relief.

The pact is intended to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have consistently denied Tehran is seeking such armaments, saying its nuclear ambitions are purely for civilian purposes.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants to rejoin the deal, but that Iran needs to return to compliance.

When asked at the White House on May 7 if he thought Tehran was serious about the talks in Vienna, Biden said: "Yes, but how serious, and what they are prepared to do is a different story. But we're still talking."

With reporting by AP, apa, and Reuters

The United States will not impose new sanctions on the company in charge of the undersea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline or its CEO, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said in a report sent to Congress.

Blinken said additional sanctions will be waived for reasons of "national interest."

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters earlier that the May 19 report listed sanctions against a number of entities.

But he said there were "presidential waivers" for the company running the project, Nord Stream 2 AG, and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, a German citizen and ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Embed share

5 Things To Know About Nord Stream 2

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:13 0:00

"We perceive this to be a constructive step that we will gladly continue to discuss with our partners in Washington," said Maas, who said he spoke to Blinken about the issue.

The pipeline connecting Russia and Germany, which is about 95 percent completed and could be finished by September, has come under fierce criticism from Washington.

U.S. officials warn it will make Europe more dependent on Russian energy supplies. The pipeline will markedly increase the amount of natural gas that Russia will be able to pump directly to Germany, bypassing Eastern European transit countries like Ukraine and Belarus.

The German government has refused to halt the project, arguing that it is a commercial venture.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended it, saying that Russian gas already flows freely into Europe along other routes, including an existing Baltic Sea pipeline.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has been under pressure from members of Congress, including some Democrats, to hit the Baltic Sea project with financial penalties.

Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat-New Hampshire), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she was disappointed about the waivers.

"I've made it clear to the Biden administration from Day 1 that every effort should be made to prevent completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline," she said.

Jim Risch (Idaho), the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the waivers will be "a gift to Putin."

SEE ALSO:

Nord Stream 2: Is Russia's 'Bad Deal For Europe' Also A Done Deal?

Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom is the majority shareholder in the company.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said waiving the sanctions would be seen as positive in Moscow, according to the Interfax news agency. But he told a news briefing that "no bilateral consultations on the matter are under way with the Americans."

Supporters say the U.S. opposition is grounded in its interest in selling more of its own liquefied gas to Europe.

Washington has already imposed sanctions on a Russian company, KVT-RUS, which operates the pipe-laying vessel Fortuna.

That measure was announced by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump shortly before the end of his term in January.

With reporting by Reuters, TASS, dpa, Interfax, and AP

BARANAVICHY, Belarus -- A military jet exploded after crashing into the ground near private houses on the outskirts of the city of Baranavichy in western Belarus, killing two pilots.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a statement on May 19 that the Yak-130 aircraft from a military airbase located in the city of Lida, suffered a technical malfunction during a training flight.

"The pilots showed courage and heroism, trying to divert the falling plane from a village. After making sure that the trajectory of the plane crash was outside the residential buildings, the pilots ejected. Unfortunately, both pilots died," the ministry’s statement said.

It named the deceased as Major Andrey Nichyparchyk, a combat squadron commander in charge of the training, and pilot Lieutenant Mikita Kukanenka.

The independent online media outlet Tut.by placed videos and pictures on Telegram from the site of the accident, showing debris from the crash that hit vehicles and buildings near a residential area.

Witnesses say, the explosion shattered windows in dozens of apartment blocks in the vicinity.

Rescue teams and firefighters are working at the site.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has challenged Russia’s "foreign agent" law and the millions of dollars in fines levied on its Russian operations, arguing to the European Court of Human Rights that Moscow was violating its international obligations with the moves.

RFE/RL said it filed its complaint with the Strasbourg-based court on May 19 and called for its case to be granted priority status.

The company said the designation, and the punishing fines imposed, violate the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Moscow is a signatory.

“Left unchecked, Russia’s campaign of imposing such severe punishments on RFE/RL over its stand on labeling its content will have a profound chilling effect on what is left of the country’s independent media,” the company said in a statement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry did not have an immediate response to the filing.

First passed in 2012, Russia’s "foreign agent" law has been expanded over the years to target foreign-funded media organizations, as well as imposing criminal liability against individual reporters. Nine of RFE/RL’s news outlets have been designated foreign agents.

SEE ALSO:

EU Says Russian 'Foreign Agent' Law Stifling Independent Media, Calls For Repeal

Under the law, designated news organizations are obligated to include, in print or broadcast, large labels identifying their news content.

RFE/RL has not complied with the rules, and Russian courts have instituted hundreds of cases, with fines totaling nearly $2.4 million. Last week, court bailiffs froze RFE/RL’s Moscow bank accounts and began procedures for seizing property and equipment in its Moscow bureau.

Press freedom and rights groups have criticized the law, which has also been used to target the Latvian-based news outlet Meduza, and the online portal VTimes, which is supported by a Dutch foundation.

Both Meduza and VTimes have begun publishing on social media and their websites large print, all-capital-letter, Russian-language identifiers.

Meduza has warned it faces bankruptcy as advertisers shun the outlet, and it has organized fundraising campaigns.

“Russian authorities should cease fining and harassing news outlets for alleged violations of its foreign agents law -- an unjust piece of legislation that should be repealed,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement on May 17.

MOSCOW -- Police in Moscow have summoned dozens of staff members of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) as part of an investigation into an alleged fraud case launched against the outspoken Kremlin critic in December 2020.

FBK Director Ivan Zhdanov wrote on Telegram that police came to the homes of current and former FBK staff members overnight as they slept, slipping subpoenas under their doors to order them to come to the Investigative Committee for questioning on May 19.

According to Zhdanov, some FBK members were able to talk to the police, who told them that 70 FBK staff members were ordered in for questioning as witnesses in the case.

Zhdanov emphasized that the move is the first in the case that was launched against Navalny in December 2020 while he was being treated in Germany for what was defined by European labs as poisoning with a chemical nerve agent in Siberia in August last year.

Navalny has accused the Kremlin of ordering the poisoning, which Russian officials have denied.

The Investigative Committee said in December 2020 that Navalny and several of his associates, who were not identified, were suspected of mishandling 356 million rubles ($4.8 million) donated to the FBK by different groups and individuals. Navalny and his team have rejected the allegation.

If found guilty, Navalny may face up to 10 years in prison.

Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany on separate charges of violating probation related to an embezzlement case that he has called politically motivated.

On February 2, Navalny was found guilty of violating the terms of his suspended sentence and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison. Given the time he had already spent in detention, the court said he would have to serve two years and 8 months behind bars.

The court’s ruling sparked new protests across the country.

Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has voted to withdraw the country from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities following the departure from the accord by the United States late last year.

The May 19 vote to exit from the Open Skies Treaty must still be endorsed by the upper house of parliament and signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to take effect.

The Open Skies Treaty was signed in 1992 and entered into force in 2002, allowing its 34 members to conduct short-notice, unarmed observation and surveillance flights over one another's territories to collect data on military forces and activities. More than 1,500 flights have taken place under the agreement.

The United States formally withdrew on November 22, 2020, from the arms-control and verification agreement that Washington repeatedly said Moscow "flagrantly violated," six months after giving notice of the pending exit.

The U.S. move was another blow to the system of international arms control that former U.S. President Donald Trump had repeatedly scorned, complaining that Washington was being either deceived or unfairly restrained in its military capabilities.

Embed share

Why Are Russian Spy Planes In The Sky Over Washington?

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:04:10 0:00

U.S. media have reported that the administration of President Joe Biden, who replaced Trump at the White House in January, is hesitant to consider rejoining the accord since it would send the "wrong signal" to Moscow, though no final decision has been made on the issue.

Biden is reportedly concerned that agreeing to rejoin a treaty that Washington feels Russia continues to violate would also undermine his position on the broader arms control agenda.

The treaty's proponents say the flights help build confidence by showing that, for example, adversaries are not secretly deploying forces or preparing to launch attacks and Moscow has signaled its readiness to reverse the withdrawal procedure and stay in the treaty if the U.S. returns to the agreement.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and TASS

The European Union has slammed Belarus for its closure of the country's biggest independent online news publication, Tut.by, as one of its reporters left prison after serving six months for her reporting on the death of a protester killed during a crackdown on demonstrations against authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

In a statement on May 19, an EU spokesman called the blocking a day earlier of the popular news site an "act of continued repression and intimidation" against independent media.

Belarusian authorities also raided Tut.by’s offices in Minsk and other regions, and the homes of its journalists and employees, breaking the door leading to the apartment of Maryna Zolatava, the site’s editor in chief. The Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights group said on May 19 that 12 women and two men who worked for the publication had been detained.

"The harassment of journalists must stop and all those detained must be immediately released, together with all political prisoners," EU spokesman Peter Stano said in the statement.

"The EU continues to stand by the people of Belarus in their call for respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will continue to support civil society and independent media," he added.

The EU statement came hours after Katsyaryna Barysevich was released from a penal colony in the southeastern city of Homel on May 19 after serving her sentence for articles she wrote on the death of Roman Bandarenka, who was protesting against Lukashenka's victory claim in an August 9 presidential election that the opposition says was rigged. The articles included medical details that contradicted official statements that Bandarenka was drunk at the time of his death.

Barysevich told journalists after her release that her incarceration "failed to break" her and that she looked at the absurdities of her situation to ease her mind.

"I learned to look calmly at all of the crazy things around me. I cannot say that somebody broke me, or that I entered a jail in November as one person and left it as a different one. To my big surprise, it turned out that I am a very strong person.... There was a moment on the first day [of my arrest] when I wanted to cry but when I saw 19- and 20-year-old students in my cell...I understood that crying is not an option for me," Barysevich said.

SEE ALSO:

Independent News Site In Belarus Raided As Crackdown Escalates

"I had a brown card that is given to individuals with the status of 'inclined to extremism,' so I was transported handcuffed along with two women sentenced to nine years and 10 years in prison for murder. They were laughing that they were not handcuffed, while I was!" she said.

Doctor Artsyom Sarokin was handed a suspended two-year prison term and ordered to pay a fine of 1,450 rubles ($555) for disclosing the information to Barysevich.

'Alarming New Step'

The Committee for the Protection of Journalists condemned the raids on the offices of Tut.by and its affiliates across the country, as well as the homes of the company’s editors. A total of 14 employees from the media group were detained as suspects in an alleged tax evasion case.

"It’s clear that authorities’ only real motive is to censor Belarus’ premier independent news website out of fear of its reporting. Authorities must release all Tut.by employees immediately and without charge, and should allow the outlet to work freely,” Gulnoza Said, the New York-based watchdog's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement.

Jeanne Cavelier, the head of Reporters Without Borders' Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said "this large-scale offensive against TUT.BY is an alarming new step towards the annihilation of independent journalism and the complete control of the media space desired by the authorities."

"We call on the UN to react firmly in order to obtain the release of all journalists imprisoned in Belarus and to ensure respect for the right to inform.”

A co-owner of Tut.by, Yulia Charnyauskaya, also was detained on May 18 but rushed to a Minsk hospital with heart problems, where she spent several hours. Her current whereabouts are unknown, Vyasna says.

A Tut.by co-founder, Kiryl Valoshin, told Current Time on May 18 that there is sizeable support in Belarus for the publication, which has over 3 million online users. But he said he doubted that an escalating crackdown on the media and civil society in the country following protests over a disputed presidential election last August will stop any time soon.

"Unfortunately, let us admit that the level of violence and lawlessness in the country is so high that even the possible closure of Tut.by will not make its supporters do something more than express their thoughts on social networks," Valoshin said, adding that he hopes Tut.by will be able to continue operating in some form.

Belarusian authorities have stepped up their repression of journalists and bloggers ever since the start of mass protests sparked by the presidential election. Tut.by has been under pressure for months.

Outrage over what was seen as a rigged vote to hand Lukashenka a sixth term in office brought tens of thousands onto the streets to protest the outcome.

Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

Some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.

Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka, 66, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and postelection crackdown.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Kazakh human rights organizations have added two activists to a list they keep of political prisoners in the oil-rich Central Asian nation, bringing the total number to 28.

The two activists added to the list on May 19 are Nurbol Onerkhan from the North Kazakhstan region and Zhanibek Zhunisov from the capital, Nur-Sultan.

Onerkhan was given a parole-like "freedom limitation" sentence last year for allegedly being involved in the activities of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement and its affiliate, the Street party. Both groups have been labeled as extremist organizations and banned in Kazakhstan.

On May 4, a court in the city of Petropavl found Onerkhan guilty of a parole violation and sent him to prison for two years.

Zhunisov was arrested in February for taking part in events organized by the Street party and is awaiting trial.

The Almaty-based Dignity, Spirit, Truth group of experts representing human rights organizations was established in 2013. Since then, the number of political prisoners in the country has risen dramatically.

In recent years, many activists across Kazakhstan have been handed prison or parole-like sentences for their involvement in the activities of DVK and the Street party, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the two groups.

DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings violates international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

Kazakh authorities have insisted that there are no political prisoners in the country.

Ten of the 16 acts competing in the first semifinal in Rotterdam on May 18 advanced to the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest -- including performers from Russia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine.

A second semifinal is scheduled for May 20, with 10 of those acts also advancing to the May 22 final, which will include automatic qualifiers Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Britain, along with the host nation, the Netherlands.

Qualifiers from May 18 also included Norway, Israel, Malta, Lithuania, Cyprus, Sweden, and Belgium.

Countries not advancing were Romania, Croatia, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Ireland, and Australia.

Embed share

Defying Prejudice: Russia's Tajik-Born Eurovision Hopeful

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:03:40 0:00

The 2020 event was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Netherlands won the 2019 contest, giving it the right to host the succeeding event.

The competition features contestants performing 39 songs from nations across Europe as well as Australia and Israel. The broadcast is watched live by tens of millions of people around the world, many of whom will vote remotely on their favorites.

A crowd of 3,500 -- tested for the coronavirus before the event -- was allowed into the Rotterdam arena to watch the performances live.

The second semifinal will include: Serbia, Georgia, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Poland. Also included are: the Czech Republic, Albania, Estonia, Latvia, San Marino, Austria, Iceland, Portugal, Finland, Switzerland, and Denmark.

Belarus has been excluded from the contest after failing to submit an entry that complied with the nonpolitical nature of the competition. Minsk denounced the decision as "politically motivated."

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said in a March 26 statement that a second entry submitted by the Belarus state broadcasting authority “was in breach of the rules that ensure the contest is not instrumentalized or brought into disrepute.”

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

WASHINGTON -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the state’s case against Viktor Medvedchuk is “just the beginning” of a process of curtailing the power of a handful of tycoons who have dominated the country’s economic and political landscape for decades.

In a statement published on May 18 on the website of Washington-based think tank the Atlantic Council and aimed at a U.S. audience, Zelenskiy said this “unelected elite has rigged the system” to preserve their power and wealth indefinitely to the detriment of the population.

He claimed that Ukraine under his leadership was now making progress on battling the tycoons, pointing to the sanctions his administration imposed in February on Medvedchuk, a Russia-leaning politician and businessman with assets allegedly ranging from television stations to oil pipelines.

“This is just the beginning. There will be many more such measures until all of Ukraine’s oligarchs are cut down to size and reduced to the status of ordinary big businessmen,” Zelenskiy said in the statement.

Zelenskiy said the state’s actions against Medvedchuk -- who will go on trial in July on charges of treason that he calls politically motivated -- shows such people are “toothless” when their media assets and political protection are peeled away.

The president promised to unveil “key legislation” with the goal to “destroy the oligarchic order” and create a more equitable Ukraine.

Zelenskiy’s tough words come amid Western frustration over his administration’s commitment to crucial reforms, including cracking on the tycoons, and his own sharply falling ratings.

A former comic and antiestablishment candidate, Zelenskiy won the 2019 election in a landslide in part on a promise to take on those tycoons.

However, after two years in power, Zelenskiy’s administration has made little progress on curtailing the biggest players.

Other Targets

Aside from Medvedchuk, who heads the second-largest party in parliament, Zelenskiy’s administration has launched an investigation into Petro Poroshenko, the billionaire former president who is considered a competitor for the 2024 election.

Zelenskiy has yet to go after Ihor Kolomoyskiy, whom critics call one of the most “notorious” tycoons for his brazen tactics and who is under U.S. investigation for money laundering. Kolomoyskiy’s media companies backed Zelenskiy’s long-shot campaign for the presidency.

Nor has Zelenskiy taken on Dmytro Firtash, whom the United States has indicted on bribery charges. A senior U.S. state department official last month raised frustration with Ukraine’s failure to investigate Firtash.

Ukraine, a nation bestowed with significant natural resources and fertile land, is among Europe’s poorest by average income because of the uneven distribution of wealth following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

SEE ALSO:

A Powerful Kremlin Ally Faces A Treason Trial In Ukraine. Ukraine's President Faces A Political Trip Wire.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the nation’s largest manufacturing and extraction industries fell into the hands of a few individuals like Kolomoyskiy, who transformed that wealth into outsized political influence that they continue to exercise to this day.

The tycoons often block reforms that would benefit Ukraine’s economy at the expense of their personal fortunes and buy off judges.

Despite years of prodding by the United States and Europe, Ukraine’s leaders have failed to challenge the tycoons.

Zelenskiy said previous leaders considered their existence “as a natural and profitable state of affairs that brought with it the promise of stability.”

Ukrainian officials have marked the 77th anniversary of the Crimean Tatars’ Stalin-era deportations from Crimea to Central Asia by denouncing what they called their ongoing persecution by Russia.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and backed separatists in two of its eastern provinces, sparking a war that has killed more than 13,000 people.

Crimean Tatars, rights activists, and Western governments say Russia has subjected Crimean Tatars and others who opposed annexation to abuse, discrimination, and politically motivated prosecution on false charges.

As Crimean Tatars marked the anniversary of the 1944 deportations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a statement: "We will not forgive that 70 years [after the deportations] you were forced to leave your home again due to the Russian annexation."

"And those of you who remain [in Crimea] are being persecuted and imprisoned by the occupation authorities," Zelenskiy added.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Russia “continues to systemically suppress the Crimean Tatars."

Russia denies carrying out repressions in Crimea, but regularly announces arrests of alleged Islamist or pro-Ukrainian "terrorists" on the Black Sea peninsula.

The Crimean Solidarity group said that prayers and commemorations of the victims of the 1944 deportations were held on May 18 in towns and villages across Crimea, despite warnings by Russia-imposed authorities not to hold unsanctioned public events.

Commemoration events were also held in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Members of the mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking indigenous ethnic group of the Black Sea peninsula were deported en masse during World War II, after Stalin accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany.

Starting on May 18, 1944, some 250,000 people were put on trains -- most of them in the space of two days -- and sent to Central Asia. Tens of thousands died during the journey or after they were left on the barren steppe with few resources.

Crimean Tatars were not allowed to return to Crimea until the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev conducted reforms in the years before the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

In November 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law declaring May 18 the Day of Commemoration of Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatars.

With reporting by AFP, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, and Crimea.Realities

BATKEN, Kyrgyzstan -- Kyrgyz and Tajik officials have agreed to jointly control law and order along a disputed segment of the border to ease tensions following deadly clashes late last month.

Officials in Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Batken said on May 18 that a joint checkpoint has been established between the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai and Tajikistan's Vorukh district for law enforcement and border guards in the two Central Asian nations to control safety and security in the volatile area.

A day earlier, several Kyrgyz and Tajik nationals were briefly detained along the border.

WATCH: After Kyrgyz-Tajik Clashes, Residents Of Border Area Say Tensions Are All Too Familiar

Embed share

After Kyrgyz-Tajik Clashes, Residents Of Border Area Say Tensions Are All Too Familiar

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:03:36 0:00

The Kyrgyz side claimed that its three citizens were severely beaten while in Tajik custody, threatening to reignite the conflict after deadly clashes erupted on April 28 after the Tajiks tried to install security cameras at a position in the disputed territory.

Batken regional officials also said that a delegation led by the governor, Abdikarim Alimbaev, and a delegation led by the head of Tajikistan's Sughd region, Rajobboi Ahmadzoda, had agreed on May 17 that officials and individuals involved in the beating of the Kyrgyz citizens will be held responsible and face justice.

A member of the Tajik delegation confirmed to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that the Tajik side agreed to punish its citizens involved in the beating.

According to the official, after that Kyrgyz authorities agreed to allow Tajik citizens and vehicles to pass through territory under Kyrgyz control. There was no official confirmation of that from the Tajik authorities.

The situation along the volatile segment of the border was reported to have calmed with police officers from both sides controlling the area.

Many border areas in Central Asia have been restive since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The clashes that started last month left scores of people on both sides dead and injured.

The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.

In recent decades, there have been many incidents along the border which in some cases involved gunfire.

KYIV -- Ukraine's parliament has voted to dismiss Health Minister Maksym Stepanov over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and approved the resignations of the economy and infrastructure ministers.

Lawmakers ousted Stepanov in a 292-1 vote on May 18, making him Ukraine’s third health minister to be dismissed since COVID-19 hit the country last year.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who initiated Stepanov's firing, told parliament that the minister was responsible for the "unsatisfactory pace of vaccination" against COVID-19 and failures in vaccine procurement.

Economy Minister Ihor Petrashko and Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy did not disclose reasons for their decision to leave their jobs in their resignation letters filed to the Verkhovna Rada last week.

With more than 2 million registered coronavirus infections and over 48,000 related deaths, Ukraine is among the European countries most affected by the epidemic.

The country is also lagging in its vaccination efforts, with about 950,000 Ukrainians having received their first vaccine dose as of May 18.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's economy shrank 2 percent in the first quarter of 2021 year-on-year after contracting 4 percent last year.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's cabinet has experienced significant turnover since the former comic took power in 2019.

With reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, and AFP

Czech President Milos Zeman has apologized over the 1999 NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia, in which his country took part while he was prime minister.

The 78-day U.S.-led bombing campaign forced Serbian troops out of Kosovo, ending a bloody two-year war of the southern province’s independence.

"I would like to use this opportunity to apologize for the bombing of former Yugoslavia," Zeman said on May 18 during a visit to Prague by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

The Czech Republic "desperately" sought partners within the alliance to object to the campaign, but ultimately failed, the 76-year-old Zeman said.

"It was lack of courage," he added. “With this plea of forgiveness, I resolved my long-standing trauma, because remorse is liberating.”

Vucic said Serbians will “always be grateful" to Zeman because “what he said about the bombing has never been said before."

Zeman served as prime minister between 1998 and 2002 before taking over as president in 2013. He has favored friendly ties with Russia for years.

The NATO military intervention is hailed in Kosovo as crucial in ending the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict that left more than 10,000 people dead.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Belgrade does not recognize this.

Most EU nations and the United States have recognized Kosovo's independence, but not by Serbia's allies Russia and China.

Based on reporting by AFP and iDNES.cz

Russian lawmakers gave preliminary backing to new legislation that human rights groups says is part of authorities’ efforts to “annihilate any shred of visible dissent” in the country.

The lower house of parliament on May 18 passed three bills that target individuals who have supported civil society and religious organizations declared extremist or terrorist by authorities, and also widen the scope of an existing law on “undesirable” organizations.

Under one of the measures, individuals involved in the activities of an organization that has been recognized by a court as extremist or terrorist would be barred from running in parliamentary elections for up to five years. The bill also provides for the restriction to apply retroactively.

The effort comes as authorities step up pressure on Aleksei Navalny, the imprisoned anti-corruption lawyer whose foundation Russian authorities are seeking to have declared extremist.

His Anti-Corruption Foundation has already been declared a “foreign agent”-- a punitive designation under a separate law

The new measures, which must undergo two more votes in the State Duma, would effectively impose “new muzzles on individuals who criticize the government,” in particular allies and supporters of Navalny, and bar them from participating in public life, including elections, Amnesty International said in a statement.

“[President] Vladimir Putin’s regime aims to fully purge vocal critics from the civic space,” said Natalia Zviagina, the Moscow director for the London-based watchdog. “The main target of this latest, particularly brazen attack is the movement led by Aleksei Navalny.”

“Having unjustly imprisoned its archfoe, the Kremlin is now targeting all those who had the nerve to support him,” she said.

Amnesty said the two other bills introduce a prohibition on participation in the activities abroad of organizations deemed as “undesirable,” and assign the status of “undesirable” to organizations who are believed to be intermediaries in financial transactions with groups already banned. They also toughen criminal sanctions.

The measures appear aimed at neutralizing Navalny’s organization ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for September. The ruling United Russia party is facing polls showing its support at some of the lowest levels ever.

Leonid Volkov, who led Navalny’s regional network before its dissolution in April, said that up to 200,000 supporters could fall afoul of the draft legislation.

The legislation “proposes that criminal liability should come after only one administrative prosecution, not two as at present, and, in some cases, immediately,” he said.

This bill seems to have been drafted to target Open Russia, a pro-democracy movement founded by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Amnesty said.

“It is another networked structure that has managed to get on its feet in the political vacuum created by Vladimir Putin’s regime. Its activists and supporters have already paid a dear price and now the stakes will be even higher,” Zviagina said.

SKOPJE -- North Macedonia has declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata and communicated the decision to Moscow earlier this week.

"[North Macedonia's] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in accordance with Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, decided to declare a diplomat at the Embassy of the Russian Federation an undesirable person in the Republic of North Macedonia," the ministry said in a statement on May 18.

"The Ambassador of the Russian Federation [to Macedonia Sergei Bazdnikin] was summoned to the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 14, whereupon a note was handed instructing the diplomat to leave the territory of Northern Macedonia within seven days."

The statement gave no further details about the case.

Based on Article 9 of the Vienna Convention, the host nation at any time and for any reason can declare a particular member of the diplomatic staff persona non grata.

The Russian Embassy in Skopje said Moscow was considering "reciprocal measures."

Several other former Soviet bloc countries in Central and Eastern Europe, all of them members of the European Union and NATO, have expelled Russian diplomats last month, triggering reciprocal measures by Moscow.

The series of expulsions began last month when the Czech Republic expelled scores of Russian diplomats over the accusations that Russian spies were involved in a deadly ammunition depot explosion in 2014, prompting a tit-for-tat response from Moscow.

North Macedonia officially became a NATO member in March 2020.

The Balkan country previously expelled Russian diplomats in 2018 in solidarity with Britain, following a nerve-agent poisoning in England that targeted former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.

With reporting by TASS

Kosovo police have seized a record 400 kilograms of cocaine concealed in a shipment of meat from Brazil and arrested seven people suspected of drug trafficking offenses.

Kosovo police said on May 18 a joint operation with Albanian and Italian police a day earlier intercepted a truck transporting imported meat from Brazil that had passed previously through Italian and Albanian ports.

The cocaine was hidden among the meat packages in a truck that had stopped in Lipjan, a town about 17 kilometers south of the capital, Pristina.

Authorities said it was a record cocaine seizure for Kosovo.

Guns, ammunition, and other items were also seized during the search of the homes of the seven people who were arrested in connection with the case.

More suspects remained at large, police said, adding that the investigation continues.

Kosovo lies on a key transit route for drugs smuggled from the Middle East to Western markets.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a diplomatic tour that includes his first face-to-face talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, has warned that Washington is concerned over a military buildup in the Arctic, a region gaining in strategic importance among the world's superpowers.

"We have concerns about some of the increased military activities in the Arctic that increase the...prospects of accidents...and undermine the shared goal of a peaceful and sustainable future for the region," Blinken told reporters in Reykjavik on May 18, a day before the start of a meeting of the eight-member Arctic Council in Reykjavik.

"What we need to avoid is a militarization of the region," he added.

Heading into the trip, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken will “advance efforts to sustain the Arctic as a region of peace, free of conflict, where Arctic Council members collaborate on shared priorities to protect the well-being of Arctic communities and address the ever-growing threat and impacts of the climate crisis.”

The meeting with Lavrov is scheduled to take place on May 20. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said the two will discuss "key issues of mutual relations and the international agenda."

A U.S. intelligence report in April said Moscow is looking to increase its economic and military footprint in the Arctic, taking advantage of global warming’s impact on the vast northern region.

"We've seen Russia advance unlawful maritime claims, particularly its regulation of foreign vessels transiting the Northern Sea route, which are inconsistent with international law," Blinken said at a joint briefing with Iceland's foreign minister on May 18.

Lavrov, however, on May 17 warned Western countries against staking claims in the Arctic.

"It has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land," he said at a press conference in Moscow.

"We are responsible for ensuring our Arctic coast is safe."

The meeting comes amid ongoing tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s military buildup in and around Ukraine, Russian meddling in U.S. elections, and recent cyberattacks blamed on cybercriminals in Russia, and the official indicated that those matters would be addressed.

Blinken and Lavrov are expected to test the Biden administration's proposition of working on areas where Washington and Moscow have mutual interests.

At the end of his trip, Blinken plans to stop in Greenland to meet with the new head of government, Mute Bourup Egede.

The two are expected to discuss their countries’ shared commitment to increase cooperation in the Arctic.

With reporting by AFP and AP

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Rallies in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, by demonstrators demanding their relatives be released from prisons and so-called reeducation camps in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang have entered the 100th day.

Police did not allow a dozen protesters, mainly women, to get close to the Chinese Consulate to stage a rally on May 18, forcing them to hold their action at a distance from the consulate building.

"Our action is not illegal, while China's actions are illegal. China killed my father, is holding my mother and two brothers. I demand my family members to be released at once. I will continue my protest until they are released," protester Aqiqat Qaliolla, told RFE/RL.

Unlike previous protests, the May 18 event was covered by several leading media outlets from the Central Asian state, as it was the 100th day since the rallies started in February.

Since the beginning of the protests, the husband of one demonstrator, Farida Qabylbek, was released from house arrest in Xinjiang in early April and allowed to leave China for Kazakhstan.

SEE ALSO:

A 'Brief Trip' That Lasted 17 Years: Kazakh Reunites With Family After Finally Being Freed In Xinjiang

Qabylbek's husband, Raqyzhan Zeinolla, spent 13 years in a Chinese prison on espionage charges and 18 months in what Chinese officials called a "reeducation camp," after which he was placed under house arrest.

RFE/RL correspondents entered the Chinese Consulate on May 18 and asked security officials if they were aware of the ongoing protest, but the officials refused to comment.

Last week, eight protesters were detained by police and fined for holding unsanctioned public events at the site.

Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang's Muslims

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China's western province of Xinjiang.

The U.S. Embassy on May 12 expressed support for the protesters as they demand information about their relatives in Xinjiang.

"We condemn China's mass imprisonment of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities. The U.S. Mission stands with those who are seeking information about their family members in Xinjiang. People should not be detained for assembling and expressing themselves peacefully," the U.S. Embassy statement said.

The U.S. State Department has said that as many as 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang's other indigenous, mostly Muslim, ethnic groups have been taken to detention centers.

China denies that the facilities are internment camps but people who have fled the province say that thousands of ethnic Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and other Muslims in Xinjiang are undergoing "political indoctrination" at a network of facilities known officially as "reeducation camps."

Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans.

Han, China's largest ethnicity, is the second-largest community in Xinjiang.

MOSCOW -- A military court in Moscow has upheld a lower court's decision to reject a lawsuit filed by jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny against the Main Military Investigative Directorate (GVSU) over its refusal to launch a probe into his poisoning in Siberia with a chemical nerve agent in August.

The Second Western District Military Court took only a few minutes to make the ruling on May 18. Neither Navalny nor his lawyers were present at the hearing.

In the original case, the 235th Garrison Military Court ruled that "the GVSU's decision" not to launch a probe into Navalny's poisoning was "legal and well-grounded," and that Navalny's lawsuit was "not worth of considering."

Judge Andrei Tolkachenko said during that hearing that Siberian Transport Police refused to launch an investigation due to the "absence of a criminal act."

The complaint stems from August 2020, when Navalny fell violently ill on a plane while traveling in Siberia. The aircraft made an emergency landing and President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic was rushed to a hospital, where doctors worked to keep him alive.

SEE ALSO:

Coup Plots, Poison, Hacking, Sabotage: What Is The GRU’s Unit 29155?

As Navalny lay gravely ill in intensive care, officials said they had not found any evidence of poisoning.

After several days, he was flown from Siberia to Germany, where he was diagnosed as having ingested what was confirmed by several European labs as a Novichok-type chemical nerve agent.

Navalny's lawyers filed a lawsuit against several officers of the Federal Security Service who were implicated by the Bellingcat investigative group in the operation to poison him.

However, the GVSU refused to launch a probe into the attack and Navalny's lawyers filed another lawsuit, this time against the investigative directorate's inactivity in the case.

The anti-corruption campaigner has accused Putin of ordering the poison attack, but the Kremlin has denied any involvement.

After receiving treatment in Germany, Navalny returned on January 17 to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested.

On February 2, a court in Moscow ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an older embezzlement case that is widely considered politically motivated.

His suspended 3 1/2-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to just over 2 1/2 years for time already served in detention.

Navalny's detention set off a wave of national protests and a crackdown against his supporters.

The European Union and the United States have imposed a series of sanctions against Russia over the Navalny poisoning and subsequent detention.

MINSK -- Financial police in Belarus have launched a probe against the country's largest independent online media outlet, Tut.by, in what the United States, human rights groups, and media freedom watchdogs denounced as the Belarusian authorities’ latest move in their crackdown on the country’s pro-democracy movement and free media.

The Department of Financial Investigations (DFR) at the Committee of State Control said on May 18 that the Tut Bai Media group was suspected of "evading taxes in extremely significant amounts" since 2019.

The announcement came shortly after law enforcement officers searched the offices of Tut.by and its affiliates Houser.by and Av.by, as well as the homes of several editors, including the outlet's chief editor, Maryna Zolatava.

SEE ALSO:

Chronicling The Bloody Belarus Crackdown Is An Imperative For This Online News Editor, Despite Pressure

The Tut.by website was inaccessible after the police searches were conducted early in the morning on May 18.

One of the co-founders of Tut.by, Kiryl Valoshin, told RFE/RL that the domain's portal was blocked. According to Tut.by, at least 12 of the site's employees have been detained, including journalists, editors, and accountants.

The Information Ministry said in a statement that access to Tut.by and its affiliates had been restricted due to what it called a "violation of the country's media law," namely by posting items filed by unregistered organizations.

Witnesses said the door in the corridor of the apartment block in Minsk where Zolatava lives was broken in by law enforcement when they raided her apartment in the morning.

“Today's raids are another example of a systematic effort to stifle independent voices and punish journalists for accurately reporting news. Belarusians need and deserve a free press,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted.

The U.S. Embassy in Minsk said in a statement that the Belarusian authorities “have stripped Tut.by of legal status as a media outlet; fined, jailed, and physically attacked its journalists; repeatedly maligned and threatened it; blocked its website; and appear intent on incapacitating it through a malign misuse of the tax laws.”

“Today’s actions against the biggest and the most popular news site of the country are part of a deliberate government policy to restrict uncensored information in the country,” the Belarusian Association of Journalists said in a statement.

Calling the case against Tut.by “a new attempt to silence the most well-known independent media in Belarus,” Christophe Deloire, executive director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), urged the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to “ensure respect for the right to the freedom to inform" in the country.

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

The blocking of the Tut.by website is "a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression and media freedom in Belarus, and leaves a gaping wound in the country’s access to independent sources of information," according to Amnesty International.

The exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, called the move against Tut.by the "premeditated murder of independent media."

"[Belarusian authorities] are killing media...they are killing us on the streets and in jails," Tsikhanouskaya said in her video statement on YouTube.

"We demand an immediate reaction of the European Union, an expedited launch of a program of support of independent media and protection of journalists and help provided to them so that they could continue their work, despite the repressions. We insist that sanctions must be imposed against all who are responsible for the repressions against editorial groups, journalists, and bloggers," she added.

In a statement on Facebook, the European Union delegation to Belarus said that “freedom of the media must be upheld” in Belarus.

Tut.by has been “the flagship of Belarusian journalism for the past 20 years, read and appreciated by most Internet users in the country and many beyond it, as well as by diplomats working with Belarus,” it said.

Belarusian authorities have stepped up their repression of journalists and bloggers ever since the start of mass protests sparked by the August 9 presidential election.

Tens of thousands of people in Belarus have been swept up in the crackdown. Protesters say the election was rigged in favor of Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994.

Dozens of reporters have been temporarily detained or jailed over the ensuing nine months.

Following the presidential election, "dozens of socio-political and media sites were blocked in Belarus, and a number of print outlets were forced to stop publishing," according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

As of May 18, 16 journalists and other media workers were behind bars, it said.

Lukashenka has insisted he won the August 9 election and has refused to negotiate with the opposition.

Tsikhanouskaya says she was forced to leave Belarus for Lithuania a day after the August 9 poll amid threats to herself and her family.