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  • Reinforcement of Repression against Independent Journalists in Homiel

    Two police reports have been drawn up in relation to a journalist Maryna Drabysheuskaya, who cooperates with ‘Belsat’ TV channel and ‘Novy Chas’ newspaper, for the alleged ‘illegal production of mass media product’ (article 22.9 of Belarus Code on Administrative Offenses) in Homiel since recently.

    The journalist’s video footage was ded­i­cat­ed to street music per­form­ers and a pup­pet show in Homiel.
    The police dis­re­gard­ed the fact that the jour­nal­ist had a press card of ‘Novy Chas’ news­pa­per cor­re­spon­dent with her.

    Yury Hrad, a police inspec­tor from Chy­hu­nach­ny City Dis­trict Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs not­ed in his report that the jour­nal­ist had ‘pub­lished’ her video footage in a pro­gram of ‘Bel­sat’ TVchan­nel from Poland. Two more police reports were drawn up in rela­tion to anoth­er free­lance jour­nal­ist from Homiel Larysa Shchyrako­va, who con­tributed video mate­ri­als to the ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel.

    One video sto­ry was ded­i­cat­ed to the prob­lems of ‘Asaut­sy’ auto-mar­ket in Homiel. And the sec­ond video report dwelt upon the efforts of local gov­ern­men­tal author­i­ties to build new blocks of flats in the quar­ters of already exist­ing res­i­den­tial areas and the con­se­quent local dwellers’ protest actions in the sec­ond largest city in Belarus. 

    The police reports were pro­duced in the Savi­et­s­ki and Chy­hu­nach­ny City Dis­tict Depart­ments of Inter­nal Affairs in Homiel.
    “The pres­sure on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists per­sists”, not­ed Larysa Shchyrako­va. “It looks like the law enforce­ment agen­cies make free­lancers leave the pro­fes­sion…

    Per­son­al­ly, I still have strength to resist the pres­sure. Also, I feel sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port on the part of my col­leagues and heroes of my pub­li­ca­tions. The lat­ter under­score the social impor­tance and use­ful­ness of my work. Actu­al­ly, I believe it’s my moral duty to col­lect and dis­sem­i­nate non-biased and truth­ful infor­ma­tion”, the jour­nal­ist added.

    It’s worth men­tion­ing that since the begin­ning of 2017, the total sum of fines, imposed on the free­lance jour­nal­ist Larysa Shchyrako­va for her work has amount­ed to 3381 Belaru­sian rubles (around EUR 1470).

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