On Tuesday Lenin district court of Hrodna fined independent journalist Andrey Mialeshka for 40 basic amounts (six million rubels, appr. 580$) for violating art. 22.9 of the Administrative Code.
It is the third fine issued to the journalist over the last six months, the Belarusian Association of Journalists reports.
The journalist received the summons to court on November, 29. The information that the third case was initiated against Mialeshka appeared in mid-November.
The hearing was held in the judge’s cabinet (judge Yury Kazakevich) and lasted an hour and a half, without witnesses. The interview under consideration is politically neutral, tells about publication of a book about famous people of Hrodna region.
“Valery Charapitsa, a professor from Hrodna university was a witness in court. He said he had told me about his book ‘400 Names of Hrodna Region’ Can we consider this hearing fair? I think we can’t. It was politically motivated. In my opinion, the judge had a prefabricated plan. And for the last ten minutes of the hearing, when we hoped that the trial would be deferred to a later date, the judge gave a sentence which was unexpectable,” Belarusian newspaper Narodnaya Volya quotes Andrey Mialeshka as saying.
Journalist Andrei Mialeshka had been fined twice for his works for Radio Racyja. The articles he wrote are politically neutral and cover issues of public significance (healthcare, ecology, culture heritage). The total sum of the fines makes around 1,500$.
Radio Racyja is a radio and a website run from the territory of Poland for Belarusian citizens which makes news in the Belarusian language. The radio and its correspondents are denied accreditation here in Belarus, and the radio staff in managing position are denied entry to Belarus even as tourists.
www.belsat.eu/en, via BAJ
