Officials Explain State Policy to Editor of Non-state Newspaper

On 9 February Barys Vyrvich, editor of the non-state newspaper Pahodnia (issued in the town of Bialynichy), had to spend almost half of the day in the office of police lieutenant-colonel V. Bizunou. However, Bizunou was not the main person to explain to Vyrvich the state policy. It was done by the chair of Bilanynichy District Executive Committee Aliaksandr Ilianau. Ilianau stated that state policy was aimed at “stability and unity of the society” and the newspaper (the circulation of which is 299 copies and only three numbers have been published so far) “interfered with this policy”.

The issue of this newspaper, which was very popular in the end of the 1990-ies became possible due to the cooperation of several democratic organizations. During the talk Bizunou and Ilianau tried to get any information about these organizations from the editor, but didn’t succeed. They also told him to remove the emblem of Bialynichy from the newspaper’s heading, saying it couldn’t be used without the official permission. Barys Vyrvich demanded from them to show the official decision of Bialynichy Town Executive Committee about this. They failed to do it and promised they would show the decision later.