Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, blames much of his country's problems on the media, reports Michael Hedges of FollowTheMedia

"The panic that has arisen in our country is, in large proportion, the work of journalists," he said at a Minsk press conference on Friday that lasted for five hours.

He added: "The frenzy among consumers has been created by the active participation of a number of media for craven reasons."

Lukashenko also spoke of "outsiders" of sending misinformation through that "trash called the internet."

His outbursts came amid a deep economic crisis. The Belarusian currency has been devalued, inflation is rampant and he is desperately seeking a bailout from both Russia and the International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile, journalists are held in jail and there has been a widespread denial of human rights.

The Minsk office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was closed after criticism of the disputed December 2010 election that gave Lukashenko a fourth term.

In global press freedom indexes, Belarus is ranked very lowly indeed, coming last in Europe.

Ironically, given its own press freedom record, Russia's finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, has said that "disrespect or other discrimination with regard to Russian media" must be "taken into consideration when granting loans."

The Belarusian authorities has refused to renew a licence to the Russian-owned radio channel Avtoradio.

In April, Andrzej Poczobut, the Belarus correspondent for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, was arrested for "insulting and defaming" Lukashenko. He is in jail awaiting trial.

An open letter to Lukashenko by the journalist Nikolai Khalezin has become a rallying cry for reform with more than 2m hits on Russian and Belarusian servers alone.

On Friday, the UN human rights council instructed the human rights commissioner to produce a full report on the country.

Britain's foreign minister, William Hague, will press the European Union today to impose stringent sanctions on Belarus, including an arms embargo, in response to Lukashenko's crackdown on human rights.

Hague will also call on EU ministers to ban visas and freeze the assets of Lukashenko's close associates.

Hague said: "The situation in Belarus is entirely unacceptable. We will not relent in our determination to make President Lukashenko recognise the rule of law and democratic freedoms, to free political prisoners and to end the human-rights abuses perpetrated by his government."

Sources: FollowTheMedia/Moscow Times/The Independent