In the program “Club of Editors” on the state TV, the newly appointed editor in chief of “SB. Belarus Today” Dzmitry Zhuk said the teachers should read state-run newspapers. This was how he explained compulsory subscription to state-run newspapers, which exists in secondary schools.
Zhuk replied to the open letter of the writer Yauheniya Pasternak, who previously turned to the new editor of “SB” with a request to abolish the compulsory subscription to the newspaper. According to the author, employees of many state institutions, teachers are forced by administration to subscribe to some periodicals “under threat of dismissal or withdrawal of bonuses”. She believes it is actual extortion of money from people.
However, according to Dzmitry Zhuk, it is normal that “the state is promoting its publications.”
“I do not know of a single teacher, who was dismissed for the subscription — be it the refusal or not. As a journalist, a man and a citizen, I am absolutely convinced that the people employed by the state should read the government press. Especially for teachers — those who have to read a lot of various publications. Each decides for themselves how to make use of it,” said Zhuk.
Ex chief editor of “SB” Pavel Yakubovich added that he also does not know cases of dismissal for refusing to subscribe and called the charges Pasternak called the accusations of Pasternak “basic and primitive.”
