Belarus threat to ban media

THE authoritarian president of Belarus yesterday threatened to ban some foreign media organisations from working in the country after what he described as their alarmist coverage of the deepening financial crisis.

President Alexander Lukashenko directed his harshest criticism at the Russian media, which pose a greater danger to his rule because many Belarusians watch Russian television channels.

He said the Russian coverage contained the most “hysteria.”

He ominously criticised some Belarusian journalists working for foreign organisations, ordering the government to “make sure those media organisations no longer work on our territory.”

Belarus is engulfed in its most severe economic downturn since the Soviet collapse.