Rabochaya Salidarnasts Addresses Information Ministry
On June 7 chief editor of the Rabochaya Salidarnasts Mikalai Halko addressed Minister of Information Uladzimir Rusakevich. He asked to revise the decision about three-month suspension of the newspaper. Mikalai Halko believes the infringement made by the editorial board does not deserve such a severe punishment. The newspaper journalists claim they are not going to stop their work and will publish their materials in a newsletter with circulation of 299 copies.
In his letter to the minister the newspaper chief editor explains the circumstances which led to infringement of the Law on press. One of the newspaper’s founders, Belarusian Trade Union of Car and Agriculture Machine Industry (ASM), decided to pull out. Belarusian Labor Party is the only founder of the Rabochaya Salidarnasts now. On 19 March the editorial board applied to Minsk city administration for registration of the new legal address. However, the Department for Ideological Work still did not give permission for registration. Minsk city administration kept requiring more and more additional documents, and officially prolonged the consideration terms on May 24. Thus, failure to present the documents needed for changing the certificate, was not the fault of the editorial board, -- stresses Halko in his letter to the Minister.
Press service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists reminds the readers, that the warning and the order to suspend the Rabochaya Salidarnasts were signed on June 3. The Information Ministry decided the newspaper had violated Art 11 of the Law on press by failure to inform the Ministry about the change of the number of founders in time. The editorial board does not exclude political motives of the decision, reports www.praca.by “Our journal always criticized the policies of the county’s leadership, covered the events of the independent trade union movement, and opposed the official Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. This is the real motive to suspend our activity,” – believes deputy editor Mikalai Herasimenka.
