Journalists from Brest Alyaksandr Lyauchuk and Milana Kharytonava will have to pay 2,205 rubles to the state for cooperation with Belsat. This decision was passed on October 23 by the judge Aksana Skel.
Journalists were fined for cooperating with Belsat without accreditation under Part 2 of Article 22.9 of the Administrative Code. The court fined Alyaksandr Lyauchuk 1,225 rubles — this is the maximum penalty for this article. Milana Kharytonava received a fine of 980 rubles. Thus, for the story about the preparation of the Vysokaye to “Dazhynki” journalists were fined for the total of $ 1,050.
On October 25, journalists will stand trial, this time in the Zhabinka District Court. In addition, the police handed Milana Kharytonava and Ales Lyauchuk a subpoena demanding to come to the police station on October 24. Journalists believe that they will have two more protocols.
A week ago, Dzmitry Kurouski, a judge at the Zhabinka District Court, sentenced journalists to a fine of 70 basic units. Thus, in general, the amount of fines in the last weeks for the two of them amounted to more than 1,800 US dollars. And this is close to the annual income of the average Brest dweller.
“It seems that the authorities decided to destroy me and my family financially. 1,800 dollars for Belarus is very big money. Clearly, their goal is to make me stop cooperating with Belsat, and even better leave the country. But they will fail,” says Ales Lyauchuk.
