’Narodnaya Volia’ issued with third warning

The previous ones were issued by the Ministry of Information in November and December 2009.

The warning was issued in connection with a series of publications by Illia Kopyl Niabyshyna. War printed in the newspaper in March 2010.

Referring to the conclusion of the History Institute of National Academy of Science of Belarus, the Ministry of Information states that a number of historical facts do not meet the reality.

‘Disseminating false information that discredits the guerilla movement in Belarus, actions of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, causes pickets and negative public reaction,’ reads the warning published on the website of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

‘I don’t care about this. Journalists have freedom of speech and officials have freedom of speech. They understand it in different way and act in accordance with their functions,’ the editor of Narodnaya Volia Iosif Siaredzich told RFE/RL.

In April, representatives of the war veterans organization and the pro-governmental BRSM youth movement picketed the editor’s office of Narodnaya Volia protesting against publications by Illia Kopyl. The journalists regarded this as an initiative of the authorities.

Illia Kopyl is a retired artillery major. He served in the USSR strategic missile forces since 1961. Kopyl’s family lived on the occupied territory during the war. The author’s memories of his childhood during the war lay in the foundation of his book Nyabyshyna. War. Occupation through the Eyes of a Teenager.