Belarus authorities set to make us stop contributing to Belsat — journalist

Judge Raisa Labacheuskaya slapped a fine of 2,250 Belaru­sian rubles (about $1,100) The tri­al was based on pro­to­cols drawn up by local police­men.

Ales Lyauchuk and Milana Khary­ton­a­va have been repeat­ed­ly spot­ted cov­er­ing the protests against the con­struc­tion of a bat­tery fac­to­ry in the city and inter­view­ing locals. The crew has already had many tri­als over mak­ing reports about the sit­u­a­tion in Brest.

“Ear­li­er, the police tried to col­lect evi­dence, looked for wit­ness­es, but now they just don’t care about such ‘tri­fles’. The mate­ri­als of the case did not include infor­ma­tion about the exact time of our being in the square, no names of peo­ple whom we had inter­viewed; there were no wit­ness­es, but still, we have got a fine of 2,550 rubles,” Ales Lyauchuk said.

On March 3, being pre­ven­tive­ly detained in the run-up to a protest ral­ly, the crew had to spend two hours in the police sta­tion. The offi­cers drew up pro­to­cols on the Besat TV con­trib­u­tors for alleged­ly vio­la­tion Art. 22.9 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code, i.e. their cov­er­ing protests on Feb­ru­ary, 17. As a result, the duo stood tri­al on March, 21.

“I filed comp­taints to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee and the Prosecutor’s Office, but all I have received from them is noth­ing but for­mal replies. For exam­ple, the Prosecutor’s Office sent my com­plaint back to be con­sid­ered by the police depart­ment, the employ­ees of which had detained us. I doubt they will admit their mis­takes,” Lyauchuk told Bel­sat TV.

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties have been exert­ing pres­sure on him and his col­league and wife Milana Khary­ton­a­va for over six months, the jour­nal­ist stressed.

“It start­ed in August last year, and they have been per­se­cut­ing us for more than half a year. They pre­vent us from per­form­ing our pro­fes­sion­al duties and leave us no space for nor­mal life. I think their goal is to make us stop con­tribut­ing to Bel­sat, or even emi­grate,” he added.

A year ago, Brest res­i­dents start­ed protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a haz­ardous bat­tery fac­to­ry by the iPow­er com­pa­ny. As the city author­i­ties out­law protests, peo­ple do not make speech­es or chant any slo­gans – they just feed pigeons or car­ry baloons.

Because of the work in the ‘par­ti­san’ con­di­tions, Bel­sat employ­ees are often on tri­al for ille­gal pro­duc­tion of media mate­ri­als and work with­out accred­i­ta­tion.

Thus, the cir­cle clos­es: jour­nal­ists are denied accred­i­ta­tion because they break the law and they break the law, because they work with­out accred­i­ta­tion that they seek. And it explains the exis­tence of absur­dist Arti­cle 22.9 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code. If you have accred­i­ta­tion, you are allowed be a jour­nal­ist. If you do not have it – you are out­lawed.