Non-professional and short-sighted politic of the Belarusian government in the sphere of the national broadcasting became most obvious for the vast auditory of the football fans during the world championship of this extremely popular game. Government structures are responsible for the situation when the entire nation in the centre of Europe is left without the possibility to witness the sporting events in Japan and South Korea. This is a consequence of the many years of government's work aimed at the destruction of the national TV broadcasting.
    In the multinational Belarus 97% of the TV programs run in Russian, while 73,6% of the citizens stated Belarusian as their only mother language during the 1999 state census. Information flows are under the absolute control of the Russian Federation's TV channels. National Tele-Radio Company purposefully cuts the belarusian-language translations. Children of Belarus may not watch the films and cartoons in their tongue. So, Belarusian youth can't hear the Belarusian on the TV. Even today less than 30% of the children use Belarusian, which has to lead to the language extinction.
    Meanwhile, Eurosport channel broadcasts simultaneously in 18 European languages, and so 96% of the people can watch it in their own language. And Belarusians are deprived of the world -popular entertainment in their native language because of the absurd activities of the government.
    Belarusian language society appeals to the international community, asking:
    - UNESCO - within the joint program with the Discovery Channel - to inform the world about the problem of protecting the cultural heritage and language of the Belarusian people that faces the threat of extinction.
    - Management of the international satellite channels Eurosport, EuroNews, and Discovery Channel - to look at the technical possibility and financials needed to begin the belarusian-language translations.
    - European Parlament, European Commission, Council of Europe, European Institute of Mass Media and other European structures - to pay close attention to the common project of the belarusian NGOs of the Belarusian-language public satellite television broadcasting in the times of the monopoly of the Belarus government on the electronic mass-media market.
    Belarusians, as a civilized Europeans, must have the right on the free access to the information, use the benefits of the modern technology and meet other nations' cultures through our native language.

Secretariat of the BLS.
June the 6th, 2002.