Pressbol Newspaper Can Be Closed

On 5 January the Ministry of Information issued a warning to the editorial board of the independent newspaper Pressbol. It is the second warning for the year. According to article #5 of the Law on press, such situation can result in liquidation of the newspaper by the court.

The reason for the warning of 5 January was the article “Questions of Vital Importance. Open appeal to Aleksandr Lukashenko” (Pressbol #153 (1753) of 21 December 2004). The ministry is of the opinion that this article is publication of court materials without written permission of the judge (for instance, it included the suit of the minister of finances of the Republic of Belarus, the head of Belarusian Association of Gymnastics Mikalay Korbut). The editorial board of the newspaper has the right to complain against the warning to the Supreme Economic Court within a month’s term.

On 8 April 2004 Pressbol was warned by the Ministry of Information upon article #5 for the project “Sasha and Sirozha” in which, according to the view of the ministry “vulgar and taboo vocabulary was used together with distortion of the generally accepted norms of Russian language”, which is an assault on the civil morality”. The editorial board didn’t complain against the warning and stopped publishing the project after it.

Press service of Belarusian Association of Journalists