Journalists Fined Six Times in Minsk within One Day

The Cen­tral City Dis­trict Court of Min­sk con­sid­ered 6 cas­es on admin­is­tra­tive charges against free­lance jour­nal­ists, who coop­er­ate with ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel, with­in one day of May 7th. All of them were fined.

The judge Vik­to­ryia Shabunia from the Cen­tral City Dis­trict Court of Min­sk imposed fines in the sum of 35 base amounts on free­lance jour­nal­ists Lubou Lunio­va and Siarhei Krauchuk in the morn­ing of May 7, 2018. (One base amount equals approx. 10 EUR in equiv­a­lent.)

The case was based on a report, pro­vid­ed by a police­man Dzmit­ry Shan­tyr, who stat­ed that he saw Lunio­va and Krauchuk inter­view­ing peo­ple dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny of open­ing a memo­r­i­al plaque, ded­i­cat­ed to the 100th anniver­sary of dec­la­ra­tion of Belaru­sian People’s Repub­lic in Min­sk.

It is remark­able that the TV-report hasn’t been broad­cast by the ‘Bel­sat’ TV-chan­nel. ‘You are not pun­ished for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of mass media pro­duc­tion. You are pun­ished for its pro­duc­tion only,’ – the judge retort­ed to the defen­dants’ fair indig­na­tion.

 Anoth­er judge Ivan Kast­sian imposed huge fines on the jour­nal­ists Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va) – 35 base amounts and Iry­na Arak­houskaya – 20 base amounts.

After­wards, the judge Vik­to­ryia Shabunia fined a free­lance jour­nal­ist Maryia Art­sy­basha­va 30 base amounts and a free­lance jour­nal­ist Siarhei Krauchuk 35 base amounts (for the sec­ond time with­in the same day).

Thus, the total sum of fines to jour­nal­ists dur­ing one day of May 7, 2018 totaled 190 base amounts (4655 BYN, or approx. EUR 1,900 in equiv­a­lent).

It should be men­tioned that free­lance jour­nal­ists have been fined 39 times for the alleged ‘ille­gal pro­duc­tion of mass media prod­ucts’ (the accu­sa­tion is used for free­lance jour­nal­ists’ coop­er­a­tion with for­eign media with­out the press accred­i­ta­tion from the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs they can­not receive being free­lancers) for the total sum, exceed­ing BYN 32,000 (approx. EUR 13,300).

Since the very start of the oppres­sive trend against free­lance reporters, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has been mon­i­tor­ing the arguable appli­ca­tion of arti­cle 22.9 of Belarus Code on Admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es in rela­tion to free­lance reporters, coop­er­at­ing with for­eign mass media. The BAJ claims for ter­mi­na­tion of repres­sions against free­lance jour­nal­ists have been repeat­ed­ly sup­port­ed by the inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ty.