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CLINTON TO STRESS DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS IN OSCE TALKS
Agence France Presse
December 5, 2011 Monday 9:23 PM GMT
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Vilnius Monday to
promote democracy and human rights in the ex-Soviet bloc and Central
Asia, including media rights in the digital age, aides said.
Clinton will discuss Tuesday the crackdown on the political opposition
in Belarus and Ukraine at a meeting of the 56-nation Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Lithuania's capital
Vilnius, they said.
The chief US diplomat, they said, will meet a dozen activists from
authoritarian Belarus, Lithuania's neighbour where strongman Alexander
Lukashenko has jailed his political opponents.
Clinton will discuss "first and foremost" the situation in Belarus
where two presidential candidates from last December's election are
still in prison, a senior State Department official said.
"We consider them political prisoners," the official told reporters
on the condition of anonymity during Clinton's flight from Bonn,
Germany to Vilnius.
Officials said she will also raise the case of Ukraine's opposition
leader Yulia Tymoshenko who was jailed for seven years in October
in what she has been described as a political vendetta by President
Victor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych clinched a narrow victory over her last year in a bitter
national poll.
Clinton has said she also would discuss with OSCE officials their new
report about irregularities in the Russian parliamentary elections,
including alleged attempts to stuff ballot boxes.
During her visit here, Clinton "will draw particular attention
to questions of media freedom, protections of journalists, and
particularly protection of journalists in the digital age," a US
official said.
The United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and other countries
are pushing for the OSCE to adopt a document supporting the fundamental
freedoms of journalists in the the digital age, US officials said.
There is particular concern that bloggers and other journalists
using electronic media are being targeted in "all of the countries
of Central Asia, Belarus, Russia, Turkey," a second State Department
official said.
The document would require unanimous support to pass, which is not
guaranteed, officials said.
And Clinton, the aides said, will discuss Moldova's simmering
two-decade conflict with breakaway Transdniestr region as well as
the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, who will meet Clinton
on Tuesday, told AFP that Lithuania is the "best location to send a
strong signal supporting democratic leaders and organisations."
Former Soviet-ruled Lithuania, now a European Union member, is coming
to the end of its year-long term as president of the 56-nation OSCE,
whose membership stretches from the United States to Russia and
Central Asia.
The OSCE, which aims to monitor and encourage democracy and human
rights in its region, was spun out of an earlier body created to ease
Cold War tensions.
From: A. Papazian
Agence France Presse
December 5, 2011 Monday 9:23 PM GMT
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Vilnius Monday to
promote democracy and human rights in the ex-Soviet bloc and Central
Asia, including media rights in the digital age, aides said.
Clinton will discuss Tuesday the crackdown on the political opposition
in Belarus and Ukraine at a meeting of the 56-nation Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Lithuania's capital
Vilnius, they said.
The chief US diplomat, they said, will meet a dozen activists from
authoritarian Belarus, Lithuania's neighbour where strongman Alexander
Lukashenko has jailed his political opponents.
Clinton will discuss "first and foremost" the situation in Belarus
where two presidential candidates from last December's election are
still in prison, a senior State Department official said.
"We consider them political prisoners," the official told reporters
on the condition of anonymity during Clinton's flight from Bonn,
Germany to Vilnius.
Officials said she will also raise the case of Ukraine's opposition
leader Yulia Tymoshenko who was jailed for seven years in October
in what she has been described as a political vendetta by President
Victor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych clinched a narrow victory over her last year in a bitter
national poll.
Clinton has said she also would discuss with OSCE officials their new
report about irregularities in the Russian parliamentary elections,
including alleged attempts to stuff ballot boxes.
During her visit here, Clinton "will draw particular attention
to questions of media freedom, protections of journalists, and
particularly protection of journalists in the digital age," a US
official said.
The United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and other countries
are pushing for the OSCE to adopt a document supporting the fundamental
freedoms of journalists in the the digital age, US officials said.
There is particular concern that bloggers and other journalists
using electronic media are being targeted in "all of the countries
of Central Asia, Belarus, Russia, Turkey," a second State Department
official said.
The document would require unanimous support to pass, which is not
guaranteed, officials said.
And Clinton, the aides said, will discuss Moldova's simmering
two-decade conflict with breakaway Transdniestr region as well as
the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, who will meet Clinton
on Tuesday, told AFP that Lithuania is the "best location to send a
strong signal supporting democratic leaders and organisations."
Former Soviet-ruled Lithuania, now a European Union member, is coming
to the end of its year-long term as president of the 56-nation OSCE,
whose membership stretches from the United States to Russia and
Central Asia.
The OSCE, which aims to monitor and encourage democracy and human
rights in its region, was spun out of an earlier body created to ease
Cold War tensions.
From: A. Papazian