Distribution of ’Vitebskiy Kuryer’ in Belarus is still banned

The private Unitarian trading enterprise Vitebskiy Korund was left without a license for distribution of periodicals. On 6 May, the Supreme Economic Court of Belarus left standing the verdicts of the Vitsebsk Regional Economic Courrt and the cassation instances and eo ipso upheld the license denial.

Meanwhile, as stated to the BAJ press-service by Pavel Levinau, who represented the interests of the enterprise at court, Siarhei Ramniou, the manager of Vitebskiy Korund, is going to file with the Vitsebsk City Executive Committee the documents for receiving a license once again.

Bear in mind that as early as September 2009 the ideological department of the Vitsebsk CEC had refused to issue the private Unitarian trading enterprise Vitebskiy Korund with the retail license because of the presence of the Vitebskiy Kuryer newspaper in the list of its goods. This decision was motivated by the absence of the agreement of the Ministry of Information.

The enterprise tried to appeal the decision at the Vitsebsk Regional Economic Court, but the lawsuit was dismissed by the court and its cassation instance.

Vitebskiy Kuryer is a socio-political edition, registered on 29 July 2009 in the Russian Federation by the Vitsebsk activists who used to issue the Vitebskiy Kuryer M newspaper. The editorial office of the newspaper intended to distribute the edition in Belarus, both on the state subscription (through the state monopolist BelPoshta) and through its own distribution net. However, BeLposhta refused to include the newspaper in its subscription catalog for the first half of 2010.