Salihorsk court evades considering lawsuit against local TV channel
Salihorsk District Court dismissed a lawsuit of the UCP member Viktar Malochka against the state-owned TV channel. According to Judge Alla Trafimchuk, the applicant failed to pass the prior-court proceedings.
According to the court, “issues related to the sphere of social life in the area of communication, information, including the functioning and operation of cable television systems that are responsible for reviewing applications are run by the ideology department of the district executive committees, and a superior body - the chief sections (departments) for ideology of the regional executive committee.”
“Of course, I knew it was not all right in our "kingdom", but the court’s decision to delegate the solution of the dispute with the TV channel to the ideology department of the executive committee is just some nonsense. If government ideologues are responsible for reviewing complaints about the media, what level of freedom of speech can we then talk about?” says Viktar Malochka.
According to the activist, the ruling of Salihorsk District Court will in the coming days be appealed to Minsk Regional Court. Apart from that, he is going to file a complaint to the ideology department of Salihorsk executive committee.
The lawsuit was lodged following the local TV channel’s failure to broadcast Freedom Day greetings to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic, as well as its answers in Russian.
