Daugavpils TV station in crisis after election shake-up

RIGA - The fate of a financially troubled TV station in Latvia's second largest city, Daugavpils, which some believe could be the victim of renewed restraints on press freedom, could be determined this week.

Earlier this month municipal authorities repossessed cameras and other equipment it had lent to Daugavpils Television Studio, according to Marina Gorkina, spokeswoman for the new governing party Latgale's Light, which won a shock election victory last month. Gorkina has established a rival production company since her party took control of the municipality.

Vassily Semyanov, who since 1999 has been director of Daugavpils Television Studio, has criticized the removal of the equipment in the Latvian media.

The station was jointly owned by the municipality and local businesses until it was declared bankrupt last August. It is still broadcasting programs on local current affairs, but is reportedly hampered by its lack of equipment.

Its debts total 100,000 lats ($158,478), according to its court-appointed administrator, Vyacheslav Naumov. The intentions of the company's creditors will become clear at a meeting on April 20, he said.

"The creditors are keeping their plans secret. It could be kept going if a genuine offer is made, or the council might try to revive it," Naumov said.

Miroslavs Mitrofanovs, MP for the For Human Rights in a United Latvia party and a native of Daugavpils, said developments at the station were connected to the change of power at the municipality, which until last month was run by veteran mayor Aleksejs Vidavsksis of the Latgale's Light party.

"There are both political and financial reasons for this situation," said Mitrofanovs. "We can't say which side is right; there is some truth on both sides. The struggle is the continuation of the election campaign, in which both sides used the blackest methods."

Mitrafanovs believes there is no future for municipal-controlled TV in Latgale. But he approves of Gorkina's new company, which will sell programs about the municipality's activities.

"If they don't incur big costs to the municipality and are independent this could be good," he said.

The station's director, Semyanov, is not answering questions from the media, said Naumov.

Some have held up Daugavpils Television Studio as a station which, unusually for this mainly Russian-speaking city, abides by rules requiring that 75 percent of output be in the Latvian language.

But according to Nils Muiznieks, director of the Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, broadcasters that abide strictly by the language laws in the region inevitably lose audiences to broadcasts from Russia. A survey to be published by the State Naturalization Board this week is expected to show that Latvia's non-citizens, and those who are not ethnic Latvians, are increasingly watching programs broadcast from abroad.

"Latvia's language restrictions are pushing many of its inhabitants into Russia's information space, where Latvia receives less favorable coverage," said Muiznieks. "The authorities have not confronted this question at all."