Propaganda Video Revives Continuing Nightmare

Michael Hedges June 4, 2021 - Follow on Twitter

Thugs act out their worst instincts when cornered. There are no boundaries, nothing is beyond comprehension. Ask any historian. Ask any crime reporter.

A late night broadcast on Belarusian state television channel ONT (June 3) showed 26 year old Raman Protasevich “confessing” to crimes against the state and professing admiration for dictator Alexander Lukashenko. It was not his first appearance on state media since his ill-fated flight from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania was made a forced landing in Minsk, Belarus, assisted by an armed MiG29 fighter jet. His 23 year old companion Sofia Sapega was also detained.

"You can see that Protasevich was not comfortable,” said Netherlands Public Broadcasting affiliate NOS Russia correspondent Iris de Graaf (June 3). “He has thick puffiness and radiates tension. That contrasts with how we know him: as a proud activist who was on the front line at the protests. It is also noticeable that quite a lot has been cut in the interview. And at the end, when he holds his hands in front of his face and bursts into tears, there are injuries to his wrists.”

Comparisons have been drawn with other notorious forced “confessions.” US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, on a mission to Warsaw, Poland, suggested to the BBC (June 4) dark similarities with confessions forced by ISIS terrorists from captives later beheaded. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) suspended the membership of Belarusian state broadcaster BRTC for broadcasting “interviews apparently obtained under duress.”

Meanwhile, in the Russian Federation state media executives and personalities were absolutely thrilled at the act of air piracy. “I never thought that I would envy Belarus in any way,” wrote notorious propaganda channel TV RT chief editor Margarita Simonyan on social media, channeling the inner Trump. “But now I somehow envy. He (Lukashenko) performed beautifully.”

It was not a widely supported sentiment. “Such comments amount to welcoming the crackdown on Belarusian journalists, which is shocking coming from someone who often invokes freedom of the press when it comes to defending the interests of the media organisations that she runs,” said Reporters san Frontieres (RSF) Secretary General Christophe Deloire in a statement (June 2). “The Munich Charter of Ethics states in Article 2 that journalists should ‘defend freedom of information, comment and criticism’ and Margarita Simonyan is doing the opposite, which says a lot about her idea of freedom. In arresting Raman Pratasevich, the Belarusian authorities have breached the international right to press freedom, which they ferociously trample underfoot every day. Moreover, the video showing the journalist speaking with a swollen face suggests that he had most probably been beaten, perhaps even tortured.”

“It is shameful for the station that broadcast it and for the Belarusian leadership, which once again shows all their contempt for democracy and, actually, one must also say, contempt for human beings,” said spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel Steffen Seibert, quoted by Die Zeit (June 4). "After a forced landing, probably under false pretenses, a popular oppositional journalist is kidnapped from an airplane together with his partner, is put behind bars and is processed so psychologically and possibly also physically that he makes this completely unworthy and unbelievable confession. The thoughts of the Federal Government are with Protasevich and all other citizens of Belarus, who are treated inhumanely for their convictions and a peaceful struggle for civil rights.”

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media in Belarus

• Hot Topics - Propaganda

• Hot Topics - Press/Media Freedom