Harassment of Freelancer in Homel Sees No End

On Feb­ru­ary 24, the judge of Zhlobin dis­trict court Valiantsi­na Sapon­a­va fined the free­lancer Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki in two sep­a­rate admin­is­tra­tive cas­es under art. 22.9 (ille­gal pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of mass media prod­ucts). The judge fined the jour­nal­ist for 40 basic amounts in each case, in total the sum com­pris­es 16 mil­lion 800 thou­sand rubles.

The charges ground on two media reports: the first one is about the Belaru­sian Met­al­lur­gy Fac­to­ry in Zhlobin which is in tough eco­nom­ic con­di­tions – for the last two years, it’s been unprof­itable, the staff are dis­missed for hol­i­day at their own costs and salaries are cut; the sec­ond report tells about a vil­lage of Rudzen­ka in the dis­trict where a farm has been recon­struct­ed for over 10 years; local res­i­dents move for job to oth­er regions, but the facil­i­ty has not been opened yet.

There were four wit­ness­es from the agri­cul­tur­al house­hold (includ­ing the head), and the police­man who had drawn up the report against the jour­nal­ist.

“All tri­als as such are noth­ing but an intend­ed plot against me. That is why I am being per­se­cut­ed,” said Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki.

These are the fourth and the fifth fines this year, with six fines in the pre­vi­ous year under admin­is­tra­tive arti­cle 22.9.

Free­lancer in Homel Gets the Sec­ond Fine in a Month

BAJ Appeals to Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Free­dom of Opin­ion and Expres­sion