Two Journalists Fined in Hrodna

Ales Dzian­isau in court

The cas­es ground­ed on video reports about a Lithuan­ian pup­pet exhi­bi­tion in Hrod­na, pub­lished on Bel­sat web­site. The cas­es start­ed yet in July, but the case mate­ri­als were sent back to the police for com­ple­tion. The hear­ing resumed on August 14, with­out the jour­nal­ists’ par­tic­i­pa­tion. The wit­ness­es were sum­moned to court to tes­ti­fy, the artist Ali­ak­san­dr Sil­vanovich and his wife, direc­tor of the exhi­bi­tion hall Iry­na Sil­vanovich.

“The most com­pli­cat­ed thing for me in this sit­u­a­tion is that the author­i­ties shut off the air. At present, I can­not report in the his­to­ry muse­um, in the muse­um of reli­gions, I can­not report in the pup­pet the­ater, and now in the exhi­bi­tion hall in Azhesh­ka street,” says Ales Dzian­isau.

Uladimir Hilmanovich and Ales Dzian­isau

Uladz­imir Hilmanovich, human rights defend­er in Hrod­na, also com­ment­ed on the court deci­sion:

“It looks that the head of state did not solve the issue of free­lancers, or these were just emp­ty words thrown at the press con­fer­ence (the ques­tion about the fines imposed on free­lancers was addressed to Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka at a press con­fer­ence giv­en to inde­pen­dent mass media on August 4). Legal­ly the sit­u­a­tion is absurd. It is enough to read in the Admin­is­tra­tive Code that the arti­cle applied against jour­nal­ists refers to legal enti­ties only, and does not envis­age lia­bil­i­ty for phys­i­cal per­sons.”

The total sum of the fines under art. 22.9 (ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of mass media prod­ucts) amount­ed to over 146 mil­lion rubles in 2015.

Fines to Jour­nal­ists for Vio­lat­ing Arti­cle 22.9 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code (Chart)