Pavel Sheremet

Pavel Grigorievich Sheremet (russian: Павел Григорьевич Шеремет, be, Павел Рыгоравіч Шарамет, 28 November 1971 – 20 July 2016) was a Belarusian-born Russian and Ukrainian journalist who was imprisoned by the government of Belarus in 1997, sparking an international incident between Belarus and Russia. ''The New York Times'' has described him as "known for his crusading reports about political abuses in Belarus" and "a thorn in the side of Lukashenko's autocratic government". He was awarded the Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom Award in 1999 and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Prize for Journalism and Democracy in 2002.

Pavel Sheremet died in Kyiv on 20 July 2016 in a car explosion. The Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office stated in July 2016 that the explosion was caused by a bomb and labelled the death of Sheremet a murder.

Biography

Early career

From 1994 to April 1995, Sheremet was the anchor and producer of ''Prospekt'', a weekly news and analysis program on Belarus state television. The program was banned by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko one week before a referendum to increase the president's powers.

Sheremet then became editor-in-chief of the Belarusian newspaper ''Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta''. The same year, he also began working for the Russian public television company ORT and was named its Minsk bureau chief in 1996. Because of the increasing control of Belarusian media by the Lukashenko government, Russian television was often the primary resource of Belarusian citizens for alternative news.

Border-crossing incident

On 22 July 1997, Sheremet, along with an ORT cameraman and their drivers, filmed himself crossing illegally from Belarus to Lithuania and back again to show the ease with which smugglers could cross the border. Lukashenko's government was in the midst of an anti-smuggling initiative and had only recently ordered new troops to the borders. Sheremet and his companions were detained by a border patrol after jumping a fence to film unguarded areas. Sheremet and one crew member, Dmitry Zavadsky, were later charged with illegal border crossing, "exceeding their professional rights as journalists", and participating in a conspiracy.

Russian authorities protested the arrests, which led to what BBC News called a "public row" between the two nations. Yeltsin canceled a planned trip for Lukashenko to visit Moscow after he was already on his way; his plane was denied entry into Russian airspace. On 18 January 1998, Sheremet and Zavadsky were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and 18 months' imprisonment, respectively, but given suspended sentences and a "nominal" fine of US$15.

Further journalistic career

In November 1997, Sheremet was one of the signatories of Charter Ninety-Seven, a pro-democracy manifesto demanding an end to "the infringement of basic human rights and liberties by the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko". Sheremet also acted as the movement's spokesman.

In 1999, he conducted a rare television interview with Naina Yeltsina, which ''The New York Times'' criticized as "indulgent" and " oingits best to present Mrs. Yeltsin in a sympathetic light"; Sheremet's station ORT was largely controlled by oligarch Boris A. Berezovsky, a Yeltsin ally.

Sheremet's partner and former co-defendant Dmitry Zavadsky disappeared on 7 July 2000, failing to arrive for a meeting at the Minsk airport with Sheremet. Sheremet accused the Belarusian authorities of having arranged his forced disappearance in retaliation for his reporting, later alleging that he had been informed of government "death squads" by former Belarusian General Prosecutor Oleg Bazhelko. Zavadsky was declared legally dead in 2003.

In 2012 Sheremet started working at the Internet newspaper ''Ukrayinska Pravda'' (Ukrainian Truth), where he launched a journalistic blog. In 2015 he led a programme Ukrainian radio programme , first on weekends in the program
" Show of Pavel Sheremet», and then on weekdays in the "Morning of Pavel Sheremet".

Sheremet resigned from the Public Television of Russia (OTR) in July 2014, saying that journalists who didn't follow the "style of Kremlin propaganda" while covering the ongoing crisis in Ukraine were "hounded".

He was a critic of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, later, of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as well as a personal friend of assassinated Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. He publicly criticized the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. In his last blog post, on 17 July 2016, he worried that today's Ukrainian politicians who are former members of Ukrainian volunteer battalions could attempt a coup in Ukraine, and accused them of being above the law and having alliances with crime syndicates.

Personal life

Sheremet was married with two children, a son and a daughter. In his final years he lived with Olena Prytula in Kyiv.

Death

Sheremet died in a car explosion in downtown of Kyiv ( Shevchenko Raion), on 20 July 2016. Several reports refer to the explosion as a car bomb, and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko

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