One of the most widely read newspapers of the Viciebsk region, which had been in circulation since 1906, became yet another victim of the spring wave of harassments and persecutions of independent mass media.
RIP Viciebskij Kurjer
The tsunami of oppression began in the capital in February. By May, it had gathered full speed, reaching also the provinces of the country. Early May, Viciebski Kurjer was banned from distribution. The regional publication with quite a large readership was freely available, both from newsstands and through subscription. However, it had one major ‘vice’ – it was completely independent from the authorities’ reach and influence.
This particular vice, the regional officials tried to resolve using the simplest means available – revoking its license. On 6 May, the High Economic Court refused the private company Viciebskij Korund the distribution license.
Subscribing to Viciebskij Kurjer was banned and the state monopolist BelSajuzDruk refused to distribute the weekly. The newspapers’s owners, though, had hopes to distribute the paper through private retailers, a other publications in Belarus have been forced to do before.
Without a proper license, the publishers also tried to hand out the newspaper free of charge simply on the streets. However, even for this initiative the owners were slapped on the hands: on several occasions police arrested many of those circulating the Kurjer, which is registered and published in Smolensk, the Russian Federation. It appeared that this kind of distribution, if not officially sanctioned, was a serious crime.
Distribution that never happened
Police found several issues of Kurjer and copies of several other independent papers in Aleh Barshcheuski’s car on 7 April. It was enough for the district court to find him guilty of illegal distribution of printed mass media.
Mr Barshcheuski’s car was stopped at a petrol station by road police, who after a quick search found 31 issues of Viciebski Kurjer, which in fact were of different dates. There were also several copies of an unregistered newspaper Naš Dom (Our Home) as well as a number of brochures published by a civic campaign Naš Dom, headed by Barshcheuski’s wife Volha Karach.
The Viciebski Kurjer editor-in-chief had never received a court summon: it had been taken out of his mail box when he was out of the city.
Human rights defender Paval Levinau informed the court about the summon letter incident. Originally, the court hearing had been scheduled on 1 June, but a presiding judge was absent that day. According to the HR defender, there were provisions in the Belarusian legislation allowing to postpone a hearing, if a defendant was not properly informed, in particular if he did not confirm having received a court summon.
Nevertheless, the hearing still went ahead as planned on 7 June in absence of Aleh Barshcheuski. The presiding judge Viktar Kalbun ruled to start the hearing despite HR defender’s arguments. The same judge was deciding in the case of an opposition activist Syarhei Kavalenka on that very day.
Judge Kalbun fined the Kurjer editor with approximately 200 EUR for allegedly illegal distribution of a newspaper, registered as a periodic publication in the Russian Federation. Apparently, transportation of printed media in a privately owned vehicle is also considered distribution.
