One of the most frequent problems of every rookie dictator is free press. Even the acknowledged authoritarian rulers have problems with all these journalists writing their critical stuff. This is how the journalists are being dealt with in Belarus, a very promising modern European dictatorship.
Of course, you can simply put all journalists into prison. It’s simple and effective, but old-fashioned, and may cause an outcry among the so called “democratic world”. And you don’t need this in the times of globalization. If you make everything look nice, and especially co-operate in the field of an illegal immigration into the European countries, with some luck the so-called “democratic world” may simply overlook some peculiarities of your regime.
Thus, why not use the Belarusian method? Let the press shut down itself!
1. Write a nice big law (constitution) proclaiming the freedom of speech (you’ll need it later to show the so called “democratic world” how liberal you are)
2. Write a smaller law regulating the mass media as strictly as possible.
3. Keep an eye on the free press. Sooner or later some newspaper of magazine will do something, which can be interpreted as breaking some minor article of this law.
4. If that happens, issue a warning. Say, two warnings in a year – and you have the right to shut the newspaper down. You may ask, why not to shut down the newspaper right away? Because this way there’s a chance the newspaper gets scared of being shut down and begins to report the things the way you will be pleased with. Smart, isn’t it? Really, what can be more useful, than free press, which serves the needs of a dictator?
5. If the newspaper doesn’t begin to obey after these two warnings, suspend it or shut it down.
Here is the example, to make things more clear to you.
There’s a monthly magazine in Belarus called ARCHE. It’s a thick publication, flashing bright covers with politically provocative collages, and publishing analytical articles and essays, which look at Belarusian society at all kinds of angles, but all tend to be critical of the present political regime.
In September 2006 the magazine was suspended for three months because it allegedly published political articles, although it wasn’t registered as a political magazine. That meant, ARCHE changed its registered themes, which was later proved in a court hearing (and if you are a good dictator, you’ll never allow courts to pronounce wrong judgements!).
This way, ARCHE has not been published for three months. Only in the end of December the issues 10, 11, and 12 appeared.
Now, the Ministry of Information issued another two warnings. It implies, that ARCHE had no right to publish three issues in a row, since it is registered as a monthly magazine. That means, 1 “legal” issue + 2 “illegal” issues = 2 warnings. (One should mention, that in case ARCHE hasn’t published the issues at once, the Belarusian Post would cancel the subscription and the readers would remain without the issues they had already ordered).
Now ARCHE can be shut down any time, without any more warnings, till the end of 2007. This will at least keep the editors and journalists under constant stress.
