Mahiliou: Belsat TV crew on trial

Accord­ing to the Mahil­iou police, the duo con­tributed to mak­ing a news item about the 50th anniver­sary of a local trol­ley­bus depot. The sto­ry was aired on Bel­sat TV. The case was opened against the crew under Art. 22.9 of the Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es (ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of media prod­ucts). The vio­la­tion is pun­ish­able by a fine of up to 1,350 Belaru­sian rubles.

“One of the wit­ness­es showed up at the court in a state of intox­i­ca­tion. Sec­ond­ly, I did not plead guilt, and the judge ruled to ques­tion the wit­ness because he is named in the case <…>. As a result, the judge is sum­mon­ing me to court on March 4; she post­poned read­ing out the sen­tence,” Skrabuno­va told Belsat.eu.

After the reporter left the court­room, anoth­er sum­mons was served on her. Ali­na Skrabuno­va is fac­ing anoth­er tri­al under the same arti­cle.

At the same time, a fine of 540 rubles (appr. $270) was slapped on Alyak­san­dr Sidareus­ki.

The jour­nal­ist and the cam­era­man were detained in Mahil­iou on Feb­ru­ary 8, when they were direct­ed to cov­er a ral­ly of Belaru­sian dri­vers who were protest­ing against a rise in fuel prices.