Belsat TV cameraman facing 590 USD fine

Law enforce­ment offi­cers want to make our col­league defenant in the case of copy­right infringe­ment relat­ed to the brand of “Bel­sat”. The cam­era­man believes that “the case was launched to con­fis­cate the equip­ment he is using”.

“There is no cor­pus delic­ti in my actions,” says Barazen­ka. “They just want to deprive me of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work using this equip­ment”.

In March 2017, the police detained anoth­er cam­era­man, Ali­ak­san­dr Liu­bianchuk , for ques­tion­ing from the Min­sk office of “Bel­sat”. Ali­ak­san­dr has a Belaru­sian MFA accred­i­ta­tion. They took away all his per­son­al equip­ment, and took all the com­put­ers out of the ‘Bel­sat’ office.

Alyak­san­dr Barazen­ka was inter­ro­gat­ed in the Akrestsi­na jail, where he was at the time.

“The police want to put all the blame on one man — our cam­era­man,” – says Bel­sat pro­duc­er Alak­siej Min­chonak.

The case about the “Bel­sat” trade­mark has last­ed for almost five years. Accord­ing to the “BEL­SAT­plus” com­pa­ny own­er, our chan­nel has vio­lat­ed the inter­ests of his busi­ness. The busi­ness­man appealed to the Supreme Court of Belarus, but it did not sat­is­fy his demands.

Then “BEL­SAT­plus” com­pa­ny own­er tried to ban our chan­nel from using the “Bel­sat TV” trade­mark. But the Supreme Court dis­missed the claims.

Re-exam­i­na­tion of the case was ini­ti­at­ed by the Pre­sid­i­um of the Supreme Court, and the case was heard by anoth­er pan­el of judges. On Sep­tem­ber 4, 2014,the court grant­ed the appeal of Andrey Belyak­ou and banned our chan­nel from using the “Bel­sat TV” trade­mark for broad­casts on the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus and on the web page.