Provost of Homel university demands 45 mln rubles from 'Narodnaya Volia'
The trial proceedings in the case at the suit of Syiarhei Khanenia, provost of Homel State University, are scheduled for June 9 at 2.30 p.m.
The case is to be considered by the Leninski District Court of Minsk. The siuit is based on reprinting of the article Candidates demonstrated their salaries from the website of Speak Truth! civil campaign, RFE/RL informs.
Homel university provost has commenced an action against Narodnaya Volia demanding 45 million Belarusian rubles (about $15,000). According to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Sviatlana Kalinkina, it is an attempt of the authorities to liquidate the newspaper by economic means.
'If courts sentence to a maximum of $1,000 of moral damages for a death of a person, for rape or disability caused by job, and dozens thousand dollars for insulting an official, politics starts here. For an independent newspaper which does not have state subsidies, thousands of dollars are a huge sum. Such economic levers can stop the newspaper publishing,' the journalist said in an interview to the European Radio for Belarus.
As said by Kalinkina, the events around the newspaper are a sign of upcoming elections. The authorities are trying to discontinue the issue of Narodnaya Volia in the run-up to this event. If not, the journalist says, it is strange why the pro-rector had not sued those who initially disseminated inaccurate information, but sues their newspaper.
Short before this, on 2 June, the Information Ministry issued the third warning to Narodnaya Volia. The warning concerned a series of articles by Illia Kopyl, Nyabyshyna. The War, published in March 2010.
