State newspaper still not punished for besmearing entrepreneur Mikalai Charnavus

Court proceedings in the case of the journalist for the state newspaper Nash Krai Mikalai Khudzenka and the newspaper itself have been postponed again in Baranavichy.

A businessman Mikola Charnavus, who is a registered candidate for deputy in Baranavichy’s Western constituency #53, has addressed the court with a suit against a reporter of the state-run newspaper Nash Krai Mikalai Khudzenka. In one of its issues the newspaper insulted M.Charnavus for his addressing on behalf of his colleagues the Ukrainian Embassy and Prime Minister and asked them to open wholesale markets at the border of Belarus and Ukraine, so it would be easier for businessmen to work. And Khudzenka tendentiously rendered this information, Human rights activists for free elections inform.

For the first time the court was postponed because Khudzenka was on holiday. On 8 September judge Iryna Kulberda looked through documents of the defendant and decided to postpone the session of the court again.

As Mikola Charnavus thinks, it has been done in order to prevent him from defending his position and reputation between voters, the trial has been postponed to 30 September, two days after the end of the parliamentary elections.