BAJ Meet Information Minister to Discuss Distribution of Independent Press

Today, BAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mikhas Yanchuk and Aleh Aheyeu had a meet­ing with Liliya Ananich and dis­cussed poten­tial coop­er­a­tion of the state body with jour­nal­ists in order to solve some issues.

“We remind­ed that, in spite of the recent dec­la­ra­tion made by Liliya Ananich about even con­di­tions for all mass media, there are some pri­vate mass media dis­crim­i­nat­ed by Bel­posh­ta. Region­al news­pa­per Intex-press (in Baranavichy), Barysauskiya Naviny, Haze­ta Slonim­skaya, Otdushi­na and the nation­al news­pa­per Novy Chas are absent from the cat­a­logues of the state monop­o­list Bel­posh­ta and kiosks of Bel­sayuz­druk,” says Mikhas Yanchuk. The out­lets reg­u­lar­ly send pleas to have them includ­ed, but always receive refusals. The Min­ster of Infor­ma­tion said that the issue would be con­sid­ered.

BAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tives also sug­gest­ed that the asso­ci­a­tion should be invit­ed to dis­cuss draft laws and nor­ma­tive acts with­in the Inter­a­gency Plan on Imple­men­ta­tion of Rec­om­men­da­tions giv­en to Belarus upon com­ple­tion of the 2^nd Peri­od­ic Review.

They also touched upon the issue of influ­ence of Russ­ian media con­tent, but did not find com­mon lan­guage with the Min­is­ter: Liliya Ananich says that the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion is a strate­gic part­ner of Belarus, includ­ing the media sphere.

Liliya Ananich drew atten­tion to the fact that non-state mass media often vio­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar by poor­ly mod­er­at­ed user com­ments. The Min­is­ter is wor­ried that users on some web­sites are offen­sive and promised to change the prac­tice soon, also with the help of BAJ. Here, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the asso­ci­a­tion remind­ed that they pushed for decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of defama­tion in the media and online.