Figures of the year

The mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice of BAJ summed up that in 2014 jour­nal­ists and dis­trib­u­tors of media prod­ucts were fined for 105 mil­lion Belaru­sian rubles in total. 52 mil­lion 50 thou­sand rubles were imposed on jour­nal­ists as fines for con­tri­bu­tion to for­eign mass media with­out accred­i­ta­tion. 21 mil­lion 450 thou­sand rubles were imposed for par­tic­i­pa­tion in unsanc­tioned mass events. Dis­trib­u­tors of print prod­ucts were fined for 25 mil­lion 500 thou­sand rubles.

In 2015, the nation­al bud­get allo­cates 804.2 bil­lion rubles to sup­port of state-run mass media, which accounts to 60 mil­lion euros. 653 bil­lion rubles go to TV and radio, around 70 bil­lion rubles go to print peri­od­i­cals. To com­pare, state sup­port in pre­vi­ous years (fig­ures are approx­i­mate):

There were 14 admin­is­tra­tive cas­es against inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists under arti­cle 22.9, part 2 of the Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offences (ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts). Among them:

Ales Dzian­isau

Ales Zaleus­ki (2 cas­es),

Andrei Mialesh­ka (3 cas­es),

Ali­ak­san­dr Burak­ou (2 cas­es, one case dis­missed),

Mikhail Arshyn­s­ki (case dis­missed)

Mary­na Mauchana­va

Vital Sia­mash­ka (case dis­missed),

Ali­na Litvinchuk

Tama­ra Shcha­pi­otk­i­na

Ales Liauchuk

The num­ber of deten­tions of jour­nal­ists at work was 29 inci­dents (most of them short-time deten­tions):