Journalist facing heavy fine for allegedly making news item for non-existent show

The pro­to­cols were drawn upon her by Min­sk police for livestream­ing a protest ral­ly on 3 July and the Air­borne Forces Day cel­e­bra­tion on July 29. The jour­nal­ist is accused of vio­lat­ing the law on mass media (Art. 22.9 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code), i.e. con­tribut­ing to Bel­sat TV with­out hav­ing  the For­eign Min­istry accred­i­ta­tion.

Inter­est­ing­ly, the pro­to­col reads that Andreye­va alleged­ly made a news item for the Bel­sat TV show Naviny (News), although the chan­nel has nev­er pro­duced or aired such a pro­gram. More­over, the reporter was only stream­ing the event.

“In response to these pro­to­cols and charges on coop­er­at­ing with for­eign media with­out accred­i­ta­tion, I would like to ask the gov­ern­ment: why Bel­sat TV jour­nal­ists, and me in par­tic­u­lar, have to work under such con­di­tions? Maybe because accred­i­ta­tion is for­mal­ly issued by the For­eign Min­istry, иге in fact every can­di­date should pass sort of loy­al­ty check by secu­ri­ty agen­cies? In this case, I am proud of not hav­ing accred­i­ta­tion,” Kat­syary­na Andreye­va told Bel­sat TV.

The two pro­to­cols may be used in court to impose a heavy fine (near­ly $2,000) on the jour­nal­ist. The date of her tri­al is not yet known.

It is not the first time the jour­nal­ist has been per­se­cut­ed for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties. On March 12, she was arrest­ed in Vor­sha after a ‘non-par­a­site’ march and spent the night in jail. The next day, the Vor­sha city court fined her 30 basic units for “dis­obey­ing the police” and “vio­lat­ing the law on mass media”.

Turn Eng­lish sub­ti­tles on: Bel­sat TV jour­nal­ists being detained live 

In ear­ly May, a Min­sk court fined Kat­syary­na Andreye­va BYN 1,035 for “vio­la­tion of media law” (Arti­cle 22.9 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code).

***

Bel­sat TV which has been broad­cast­ing for nine years, has been denied accred­i­ta­tion for its jour­nal­ists dur­ing these very nine years. 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 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code, which pro­vides pun­ish­ment for ‘ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts’. If you have accred­i­ta­tion, you are allowed be a jour­nal­ist. If you do not have it – you are out­lawed.