Homel journalist receives another warning

On 22 October, independent journalist Larysa Shchyrakova was summoned to Homel Regional Prosecutor’s Office to receive a warning for illegal contributing to the Poland-based BelSat TV channel.

The warning was issued by Iryna Makarevich, official of the organized crime department, and dealt with the journalist’s work for the foreign media without accreditation from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry. In particular, Larysa Shchyrakova was warned for providing a comment to BelSat concerning the arrest of former head of Homel city executive committee Viktar Pilipets.

“My friend, a journalist, asked me to tell what they were saying about this in Homel. So I gave a comment on the official statement about Pilipets’s arrest,” says the journalist.

Earlier his year, Larysa Shchyrakova received a warning on the same charges. Apart from that, the journalist has been repeatedly detained when covering street protests.