Freelance journalist gets hefty fine for contribution to Belsat TV

On May 15, police offi­cer Uladz­imir Cha­pu­ly­onak drew a pro­to­col upon Lupach under Arti­cle 22.9 of the Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offences (ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts). The jour­nal­ist con­tributed to a news sto­ry aired on Bel­sat on April, 23:

“We vis­it­ed Sharkaushchy­na and asked peo­ple about the coro­n­avirus sit­u­a­tion. At that moment, it was the only dis­trict that was offi­cial­ly report­ed to be virus-free [in Vit­seb­sk region],” he told belsat.eu.

On Tues­day, judge Aksana Tabo­la has ruled to pun­ish the jour­nal­ist with a fine of 1,080 Belaru­sian rubles ($450).

“I expect­ed as much. I thought the penal­ty would be even tougher, because the fines they imposed on me passed the 1,200 mark. I told the judge that Sharkaushchy­na police­men were too lazy: we had inter­viewed three peo­ple, but they made a report after ques­tion­ing only one of then, but Thus, the tri­al has been built on the ground of it [tes­ti­mo­ny of one per­son],” Zmitser Lupach said.

On May 11, Lupach was charged and sen­tenced under Art. 22.9. He got a fine of 1,215 rubles (near­ly $500). Zmitser was also tried for his alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in a mass event, and he was pun­ished with ten days in cus­tody. It should be not­ed that Zmitser Lupach was present at last week’s ral­lies, but he just per­formed his jour­nal­is­tic duties by film­ing and cov­er­ing the protests.

On the heels of the hear­ing, the Bel­sat con­trib­u­tor became sick as he had had high blood pres­sure since ear­ly morn­ing. His friends called an ambu­lance to the court; para­medics took him to the inten­sive care unit.

On May 14, Lupach was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal. As soon as he returned home, he was informed of four-day sus­pen­sion of his sen­tence. A bit lat­er, how­ev­er, he was ordered to come to the local pre­de­ten­tion facil­i­ty and imme­di­ate­ly start ser­vich his 20-day term.

Bel­sat TV, which has been broad­cast­ing for over 12 years, has been denied accred­i­ta­tion for its jour­nal­ists. The Belaru­sian For­eign Min­istry has repeat­ed­ly declared that it could not issue any accred­i­ta­tion to Bel­sat because the jour­nal­ists work­ing for the TV sta­tion … break the law.

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, which pro­vides pun­ish­ment for ‘ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts’. If one has accred­i­ta­tion, they are allowed to per­form jour­nal­is­tic duties, if not – their activ­i­ty is out­lawed.