British minister: No BBC in Belarusian
TOL reports that certain positive signals are coming in our direction from the “Old Europe” ([1], [2]), but the heart of the Old Europe, Great Britain, confirmed today that it won’t change anything in that regard and will go on ignoring Belarus, as it has been doing before.
Here’s a short summary of RFE/RL Belarus service today’s news report from London:
“London. British parliament for the first time in many years had a debate on Belarus and problems of its democratization. It was initiated by Gary Streeter, a chairman of human rights commission of the Conservative party, who recently visited Belarus.
Representatives of both parties took floor during the debates, and the British Minister of State for Europe Douglas Alexander participated in the debates as a representative of the British government.
Gary Streeter urged British government to do everything possible in order to pressure the authoritarian regime in Belarus. Among other things, he called upon British government to do the following:
* to launch BBC Service in Belarusian language;
* to consider re-opening British council in Minsk;
* to introduce more serious sanctions against the regime;
* to raise a question of Belarus during negotiations and meetings with Putin;To that British minister Douglas Alexander answered that British government is not planning to do anything more than EU is already doing (which is virtually nothing).
Regarding BBC in Belarusian language, the minister said that it’s out of question. Belarusian issues are covered on Russian and Ukrainian BBC, he said.”
[The original news report in Belarusian]
P.S. Whether you are a British citizen or not, if you want to write a thank you note to Gary Streeter or e-mail mister Alexander, here you’ll find their contact e-mails:
• douglasalexander.labour.co.uk
• garystreeter.co.uk
April 20th, 2006 at 12:14 am
I wrote to the BBC many years ago asking them why there was no Belarusian service. I got a nice reply saying that there simply wasn’t the demand for it nor, I presume, the money (or the will). As you maybe know, if anything, the BBC is now reducing its foreign language broadcasts, or at least the number of languages it broadcasts in. It has abandoned Czech and Slovak, Kazakh, Thai and others to put more effort into its Arabic programmes. A shame, and it’s unlikely that central and eastern Europe will be a serious focus of its attention for a long time to come.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:34 am
> It has abandoned Czech and Slovak, Kazakh, Thai…
I can understand why BBC would abandon Czech and Slovak. Both countries are in the EU. They are free democracies and there are many free mass-media inside the country in the respective languages. But it makes me wonder why they closed Kazakh BBC…
April 20th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Haven’t got time right now, but have bookmarked the page so I can plan a coherent email when I do :)
April 20th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Chiefly, I think it’s because of that boring old problem: money, rather than, say, a total lack of interest in Belarus (or Kazakhstan). (Part of the logic with the Kazakh service, I’m guessing, was also they thought that Kazakhs would listen in Russian (almost) as happily as in Kazakh, perhaps mistakenly.)
April 20th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Sweet. That’s like saying to Italians, you can read Italian news in Spanish and Portuguese newspapers.
April 20th, 2006 at 2:30 am
Well, very sad. But frankly, I believe that it would be great if US and EU invested into RFE\RL Belarusan service so that it could broadcast 24/7. Plus they also ought to make it heard on FM at least in the regions bordering on Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and, hopefully, Ukraine. This makes much more sense to me.
April 20th, 2006 at 9:29 am
There’s a BBC news report on the cutbacks in the European language broadcasts of the World Service at this URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4375652.stm
Among the language services being axed are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. However, the article does note that over the decades “BBC language sections have come and gone”, so maybe where Belarusian is concerned there’s a case for arguing that in the current changing political situation in Eastern Europe pressure on the BBC by means of lobbying might have some effect.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
“Well, very sad. But frankly, I believe that it would be great if US and EU invested into RFE\RL Belarusan service so that it could broadcast 24/7. Plus they also ought to make it heard on FM at least in the regions bordering on Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and, hopefully, Ukraine. This makes much more sense to me.”
Same, it would be nice for this service to have increased funding… as I do recall such a project was being/has been undertaken. I also believe by bouncing a strong signal through the atmosphere, it should be possible to even reach as far as downtown Minsk. Provided the right type of equipment is used. There’s a nice page on wikipedia about FM DX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV/FM_DX
As for BBC service in Belarusian.. unlikely… to them… there’s a max of “only” around 10 million viewers / listeners. The BBC is a company, not a charity fund. Government pressure might help, but for most of Western Europe… “Whats Belarus?” … :(
April 20th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
I think the reasoning behind it is probably that most of the Belarusian people could read the news in Russian if they want to. I would like to see more language channels on the BBC but you have to remember that the BBC is paid for by the British taxpayer and as the last poster says is a not a charity.
April 20th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Adam: in a way you can think of it as charity — providing information for free to other non-English speaking people. So who chooses the languages? Who’s the ultimate decision maker?
May 4th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I was wondering… does anyone know about how many people RFE/RL reaches and how popular it is? I am writing a paper for a graduate class about your country and the growth of the opposition and how its being countered and i wanted to find out how many people are able to get legit news and from what sources?
Also, any other info that you think might be import would be excellent.
Thanks
May 8th, 2006 at 1:17 am
[…] Maybe some of you remember, recently a British EU minister said there are no plans whatsoever to have BBC in Belarusian language. A fellow blogger Halldor2 (from the United Kingdom?) wrote an inquiry to BBC, to which he actually received a reply. Here’s BBC’s answer about Belarusian language broadcasting: Dear Mr McDuff, […]
May 8th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Erin: according to my data, about 4-5% of Belarus population listen to shortwave Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty in Belarusian. And their website is visited by 4000-8000 people per day, which makes it one of the most popular news websites in Belarus (probably 3rd or 4th place).
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