CLINTON TO STRESS DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS IN OSCE TALKS (AFP, 5 December 2011)
Updated 2011-12-06
VILNIUS, December 5, 2011 (AFP) - 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 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.
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 democratic 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.
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 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.
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 democratic 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.
