Lukashenka: “Only lies are on Belarusian state television today” (Video)

• 22.09.2008, 15:45

Alyaksandr Lukashenka promises to the West he would hold fair and free election. The naive West applies best efforts to trust the last dictator of Europe, who is begging for recognition of his democratic “election to the parliament”. But the Belarusians know the cost of Lukashenka’s promises.

In 1994, presidential candidate Alyaksandr Lukashenka told in an interview to one of the independent Belarusian TV studios (which, by the way, was closed down soon after he came to power):

“You know, there should be different media. Let be state-run and independent media. But what is going on at state television today... You see, what is going on: lies, only lies! I don’t want to rebuke the journalists working there, they are just pressed. You know that the state television is being reorganised today. If you are unreliable, they don’t sign a contract with you. What wildness! It is cave policy in the state. Media are abused. Journalists fear. They are people, too. I myself felt this pressure and absence of an opportunity to have a window to the world, I have assured myself that we should have state-run, independent and commercial television. If I am elected president, I won’t press on them.”