“Russian provocation”
Russian documentary „God Father“ was released on the 4th of July in the “Emergency. Investigation” show on the NTV channel. The show totally covers with Aliaksandr Lukashenka and his negative sides. The archive interviews with missing oppositionists and their relatives were shown in the documentary. It was told that the authorities have a complicity in their disappearance. The spectators were clearly given to understand that the President of the Republic of Belarus is a villain who is a guilty in murders of people. A few inconvenient facts from Lukashenka’s life were given in the film, such as mentioning about his bastard Kolia and his mother. Such release reflects a change for the worse in the relations between Moscow and Minsk related to the oil-gas conflict.
The broadcasting of this documentary was blocked. It was only the owners of satellites who could watch the movie. Though the film has a broad resonance in the society. The documentary was shared on YouTube and has reached about 100 000 views. Weekly “Nasha Niva” also reported about the TV-show, but its issue didn’t reach the readers.
Disappeared issue
“Nasha Niva” weekly is on sale on Wednesdays in Minsk and on Thursdays in the regions usually. But neither on Wednesday, nor on Thursday it was not. Although the issue was released from the printing house as early as Wednesday, the “NN” website reports.
The director of one of the “Belsayuzdruk” departments, a bureau that is responsible for the newspapers issuing and delivering, assured the “NN” editorial stuff that the issue was released and distributed as usual.
The issue has reached a few newsstands in the main cities of the Republic. Members of the editorial board found a few news stalls in Mahiliou and Hrodna where the issue was on sale. There were only two newsstands in Minsk found where the issue was totally sold. Contributors of “NN” interviewed 32 newsstands more but the issue was not received there. The issue was also not found in Homel, Brest, Viciebsk and in the other big cities of the state.
“Belsayuzdruk” region management answers the questions about issue disappearance differently. Minsk and Brest management says the issue didn’t reach them and they don’t know the reasons of it. Mahiliou’s representative Viktoryja Cerashkova said it was only the documents reached, but not the issue itself. “Director said that newspaper will not appear”, she said. So the reasons that were voiced are very contradictory. But the fact speaks for itself. The issue with inconvenient information about the President of the Republic of Belarus either left on the printing houses or was wiped to our order.
“The bad side of the censorship”
“If some technical failure happens, so the issue usually appears in the newsstands by the evening of the same day at the very latest, with the next delivery. It’s also very hard to explain such selective deliverance. In some news stalls the issue was sold, and the vast majority of it the issue didn’t reach at all. The automobile that deliver the newspapers is the only one”, the ”NN” website reports.
At the moment an editorial office of “NN” is preparing an initiation of legal action to the public prosecutor’s office. “When it comes to the court we will appeal to our readers to give evidence concerning that there was impossible to buy an issue of “NN” on the 7th of July.”
The experts from Belarusian mass-media heed that censorship exists and that such action of authorities are totally not legal. Zhana Litvina, a head of Belarusian Association of Journalists (see photo) comments: “It’s a pity that the issue disappears. It’s a bad side of the censorship in our country. This actions confirm that two independent newspapers’ returning to the “Belsayuzdruk” distributing system – it’s not more than political decision. And it doesn’t guarantee them absence of the problems with a delivery.”
Katsiaryna Klimko, based on BAJ
