State Monopolist Repeatedly Refuses Services to Independent Newspaper

The news­pa­per was left out from the state-run sys­tem of press dis­trib­u­tor before elec­tions in 2006. From that time, the pub­lic and jour­nal­ism com­mu­ni­ty pressed the author­i­ties to elim­i­nate eco­nom­ic dis­crim­i­na­tion, after which sev­er­al major news­pa­pers returned itno the dis­tri­b­u­tion net (includ­ing Nasha Niva (8000 copies), and Nar­o­d­naya Volya (26000 copies)). How­ev­er, some out­lets, like Novy Chas are still dis­crim­i­nat­ed. Bel­sayuz­druk refus­es to coop­er­ate with the out­lets and pro­vide them with dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices. This time the edi­to­r­i­al office received a reply that the enter­prise does­n’t have a pos­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide ser­vices, but promis­es to con­sid­er the issue by the end of the year. The region­al news­pa­pers Haze­ta Slonim­skaya and Intex-press (Baranavichy) expe­ri­ence the same trou­ble, although the edi­to­r­i­al offices and read­ers of the out­lets insis­tent­ly appeal to the dis­trib­u­tors.