Novy chas

No.

Date

Form of repres­sion

Descrip­tion

14 Jan­u­ary 2021

Restric­tions on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of print­ed edi­tion

It became known that start­ing from Feb­ru­ary 2021, Bel­sayuz­druk will ter­mi­nate the dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment with the Novy chas news­pa­per.

Bel­sayuz­druk did not name the rea­son for the ter­mi­na­tion of the con­tract.

Bel­sayuz­druk is a state kiosk net­work and the leader in retail dis­tri­b­u­tion of print media.

4 June 2021

Restric­tions on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of print­ed edi­tion

The Novy chas was not includ­ed in the sub­scrip­tion cat­a­log of Bel­posh­ta for the sec­ond half of 2021.

The offi­cial rea­sons were that the news­pa­per had dis­sem­i­nat­ed infor­ma­tion pro­hib­it­ed by the Law on Mass Media, as well as the warn­ing issued by the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office to the edi­tor-in-chief.

Bel­posh­ta is the oper­a­tor of the Belaru­sian nation­al postal net­work. It is a monop­o­list in the pro­vi­sion of ser­vices for sub­scrip­tion and deliv­ery of print media.

21 July 2021

Ban on print­ing

The Roll Print pri­vate print­ing house has uni­lat­er­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed its con­tract to print the Novy chas news­pa­per from 12 August 2021. The offi­cial rea­son was a change in the pro­duc­tion cycle.

The news­pa­per was not able to find a new con­trac­tor. The Novy chas news­pa­per stopped pub­lish­ing a print­ed edi­tion.

20 Octo­ber 2021

Search in the edi­to­r­i­al office

The edi­to­r­i­al office of Novy chas, as well as the homes of edi­tor-in-chief Aksana Kolb and deputy edi­tor-in-chief Siarhei Pul­sha, were searched.

After the inter­ro­ga­tion, the jour­nal­ists were released with a pledge of secre­cy.

28 Octo­ber 2021

Web­site block­ing

Access to the web­site of the Novy chas news­pa­per novychas.by was blocked in Belarus by the deci­sion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion.

8 Novem­ber 2021

Ter­mi­na­tion of mass media (online media) pub­liсa­tion

The Supreme Court of Belarus has ruled to liq­ui­date the Fran­cišak Skary­na Belaru­sian Lan­guage Soci­ety.

The Min­sk City orga­ni­za­tion of the Soci­ety was the founder of the Novy chas news­pa­per. The liq­ui­da­tion of the pub­lic asso­ci­a­tion implies the auto­mat­ic liq­ui­da­tion of all its branch­es.

Arti­cle 16 of the Law on Mass Media estab­lish­es that the liq­ui­da­tion of a legal enti­ty that is the sole founder of a mass media out­let can­cels the cer­tifi­cate of state reg­is­tra­tion of the media out­let.

The Novy chas has lost the sta­tus of a mass media out­let.

7.

20 April 2022

Crim­i­nal case

A group of law enforcers with shields and sledge­ham­mers raid­ed the apart­ment of Aksana Kolb, edi­tor-in-chief, and took her away for inter­ro­ga­tion in the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee.

On 22 April 2022, it became known that she was charged under Part 1 of Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code («Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions gross­ly vio­lat­ing pub­lic order, or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in such actions»).

On 15 June 2022, judge Dzmit­ry Kar­siuk found Aksana Kolb guilty and sen­tenced her to 2.5 years of free­dom restric­tion for her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the protest march on 16 August 2020. After almost two months in jail, the edi­tor-in-chief was released in the court­room.