• Actual
  • Law and the media
  • Helpful
  • Work areas and campaigns
  • Reviews and monitoring
  • Rehijanalnaja Hazeta chief editor to be tried on September 27

    Aliaksandr Mantsevich, Rehijanalnaja Hazeta’s chief editor, will be tried in Maladzechna. Judge Aliaksei Irshyn will preside over the case, reports the Viasna Human Rights Center. Mantsevich was arrested on March 15 after his house in Vileika was searched and has been in custody ever since. The journalist is charged with discrediting the state.

    Alleged­ly, Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, who was the leader of the edi­to­r­i­al board of Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta, and some oth­er peo­ple, spread false infor­ma­tion that dis­cred­it­ed the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment and its pow­er. This was done through the news­pa­per and social media plat­forms over a peri­od from 1 Jan­u­ary 2020 to 15 March 2023.

    The pros­e­cu­tion asserts that the arti­cles con­tained incor­rect infor­ma­tion that was intend­ed to cause sig­nif­i­cant harm to the state, pub­lic wel­fare, and nation­al inter­ests. This infor­ma­tion degrad­ed the author­i­ty of the coun­try and its offi­cials. It also caused unrest among cit­i­zens of Belarus since it pro­vid­ed false ideas about the vio­la­tion of their rights and free­doms.

    The Belaru­sian rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er. They point­ed out that the editor’s arrest and tri­al were a part of the government’s plan to restrict the dis­tri­b­u­tion of unbi­ased infor­ma­tion in the coun­try.

    More­over, it is anoth­er attempt to sup­press free speech. Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta was com­pelled to dis­con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing the print ver­sion in July 2021 and pri­or­i­tize the online issue. In Jan­u­ary 2023, fol­low­ing a Mal­adzech­na Dis­trict Court rul­ing, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion added the newspaper’s web­site and Telegram chan­nel to the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als. After police raid­ed the news­room and arrest­ed the chief edi­tor, the court deemed the Vkon­tak­te social media page of the pub­li­ca­tion as “extrem­ist.”

    Read more:

    Free Word contest organizers name winners. PHOTOS

    Physical threats, disinformation, censorship. Six modern challenges for the media

    Important news. Lukashenka ordered the Belarusian embassies to stop issuing passports. Another threat to colleagues

    The most important news and materials in our Telegram channel — subscribe!
    @bajmedia
    Most read
    Every day send to your mailbox: actual offers (grants, vacancies, competitions, scholarships), announcements of events (lectures, performances, presentations, press conferences) and good content.

    Subscribe

    * indicates required

    By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to the Privacy Policy