Homel: Shop Assistants Hide Independent Press

On 11 July, when buying non-governmental press SNplus at Tamara shop of the trade republican unitary enterprise Homelablsayuzdruk (Homel regional publishing house) Homel journalist Maryia Shymanouskaya learnt from talk of the shop staff about the given order to hide the non-governmental press from the buyers.

’One of the shop-assistants when seeing the SNplus (Free News) newspaper in my hands when I was going to pay for it addressed the cashier saying ‘He came and said: ‘Let me see this paper nevermore!’ The cashier replied: ’Last month they put it in secluded places, thus, it wasn’t sold out’, Maryia Shymanskaya reproduced the heard talk to the monitoring service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

The journalist’s question who ordered to put the SNplus newspaper away remained unanswered as the shop-assistant refused to talk and resigned to the backroom. She also refused to tell her name. Cashier Vera Kruhlikava also refused to explain who had given the order concerning SNplus.