In Hrodna they stopped broadcasting the first Polish TV channel

26.10.2005.

Since 25 October the Hrodna residents have not been able to watch the first Polish TV channel. Instead, TAA Hrodna Regional Technical Center Harant broadcasts Polsat. An employee of the company, who required anonymity, told the PAHONIA correspondent that this had been done at the special order issued by the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus.
The "recommendation" of the Ministry of Information surprisingly came at the same time as the Polish TV company decided to open a correspondent office in Hrodna, said Andrei Pachobut, the famous Hrodna journalist and public activist, in an interview to PAHONIA. - In fact, the Belarusian authorities launched a preemptive strike on the freedom of speech, took a counter-measure to make sure the Hrodna residents do not have access to an alternative and uncontrolled source of information.
The Belarusian authorities started hunting down the first program of the Polish TV Company in February last year. It is then that the Ministry of Information decided the first program of Polish TV should be transferred from the "social" TV package into an "additional package". According to this decision, the Hrodna residents had to pay an additional payment for the opportunity to watch uncensored TV, which actively covered the situation in Belarus. As we see, the authorities thought they had not done "enough".