Journalists banned from cooperating with Belsat TV channel

Member of the Belarusian Association of Journalist Tatsyana Bublikava was called to the prosecutor’s office of the Homel region on February 24.

She was warned there she can’t cooperate with foreign media without accreditation according to part 4 of article 35 of the new law on media.

As Bublikava told BelaPAN, she was said that two citizen had appealed the prosecutor’s office with a demand to check the journalist, who allegedly cooperated with Polish satellite channel Belsat. Bublikava was given printouts from the website for November 22, 2008. One of the materials contained a comment of director of Homel Drama Theatre Valyantsina Maiseenka about the city festival. According to prosecution officers, the head of the theatre complained that Bublikava hadn’t warned her that the material would appear in Polish media.

The journalist was shown an answer to the request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, saying that Belsat channel is not registered on the territory of the country. The answer was written on January 19. “An interesting fact, an appeal of the insulted citizens was received on January 28, but the answer of the MFA was received on January 19, and the prosecutor’s office had printouts of Belsat’s website on December 2. So, they carried out a check, and only after that people wrote their appeals,” T. Bublikava said.

She stressed that she doesn’t work as journalist for Belsat in Belarus, she has been working as journalist since 2002, collaborates with different editions.