Founder of “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag” Summoned to Prosecutor Office Once again
On 16 October Anatol Vaytsiakhowski, the founder and editor-in-chief of “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag” was summoned to Baranavichy City Prosecutor’s Office.
The Prosecutor’s try to find out how the newspaper cooperated with the Unitarian enterprise “Marat”, which is the editorial board of “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”.
It was the third summon of A. Vaytsiakhowski to Baranavichy City Prosecutor’s Office for the last three months. Every time he was interrogated by Zoya Zhuk, prosecutor’s assistant, who explained that she acted on inquiry of the department of civil right of the Prosecutor’s Office of Belarus.
Almost all questions to A. Vaytsiakhowski again concerned the appearance of the articles, written by journalists of the newspaper “BDG” in two July number of “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag”. The assistant tried to find out how Mr. Vaytsiakhowski got acquainted with the authorities of the Unitarian enterprise “Marat”, why the numbers of “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag” with the articles by “BDG” journalists were distributed, etc. Anatol Vaytsiakhowski consequently states that he proposed to his colleagues to publish in his newspaper to demonstrate his solidarity with them.
According to Mr. Vaytsiakhowski, the prosecutor’s office has already collected a file of documents on this case. He is sure that the main aim of the prosecutors is collection of compromising materials against the editorial board of “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”, not against “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag”. “Zoya Zhuk said that the retaliation on my newspaper has been already taken, nobody prints it”, -- said A. Vaytsiakhowski in his interview to the press service of the PA “Belarusian Association of Journalists”.
It’s worth mentioning that the last number of “Mestnaya Gazeta “Shag” was issued on 14 July. Since that time the edition didn’t manage to sing contracts with any other Belarusian printing house.
