Huge Fines Imposed on Freelance Journalists from ‘Belsat’ TV Channel Again. Four Reporters Put on Trial Together

The free­lance jour­nal­ists con­tribute their footage and reports to ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel.

Dzmit­ry Kro­tau, Deputy Head of Crime Pre­ven­tion Depart­ment at the Cen­tral City Police Office in Min­sk tes­ti­fied against the media free­lancers. He not­ed that he saw the jour­nal­ists at the moment, when they report­ed from a protest action of Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion in Octo­ber Square in Min­sk on Sep­tem­ber 8, 2017. Accord­ing to the police offi­cer, he noticed the jour­nal­ists’ footage on the ‘Bel­sat’ Web-site lat­er on.

Thus, free­lance jour­nal­ists have been fined 50 times for their work with­out accred­i­ta­tion since the year start.

Anoth­er free­lance jour­nal­ist Ali­na Skrabuno­va was detained by police in Mahilou on Octo­ber 30, 2017. Three police reports were made in rela­tion to her, accus­ing the media work­er of “pro­duc­ing mass media prod­ucts ille­gal­ly” for the ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel.

Accord­ing to the free­lance reporter, a police may­or Yauhien Slau­nikau told her that her blame had already been proved by the police of Kas­trych­nit­s­ki City Dis­trict of Mahilou and the local court. The police offi­cer called the jour­nal­ist an offend­er in an arro­gant man­ner and refused to explain the reporter her rights. He hand­ed over a sheet of paper with some expla­na­tions in the print­ed form to her instead.

“Final­ly, it appeared that I was charged with ‘ille­gal pro­duc­tion’ of three reports for ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel,” Ali­na Skrabuno­va said.