Nasha Niva got another warning

Though it seems absurd, the private socio-political weekly Nasha Niva received another official warning just before the beginning of the trial on its dissolution.

The document was brought to the editorial office by a courier after 5 p.m. on 8 July and was also faxed there by the Ministry of Information.

This time the ministry officials attentively examined the newspaper issue published on 1 June 2011 and found that there was no subscription index, which is a violation of Article 22 of the Law On Mass Media. This was the only issue where this index is absent.

According to the present Belarusian legislation even such formal reason can be sufficient for closing down a media. In particular, the private socio-political newspaper Zgoda was liquidated because of the failure to print the full name of the chief editor in the imprint. The ministry also posed similar pretensions to the Arche magazine and the Salidarnasts newspaper.

According to the newspaper's lawyers, the Ministry of Information issued the third warning just to assure the possibility of the liquidation. The matter is that according to the Belarusian legislation a newspaper can be closed down after receiving two or more official warnings within a year. The terms of the two warnings received by the newspaper for articles connected with the Godbatska, a Russian documentary about Aliaksandr Lukashenka, expire on 22 and 26 July. On 14 July three months will pass since the issue of the last warning to the newspaper (during which the newspaper can be closed down). Thus, if the authorities fail to lynch the newspaper during the next few days, they can start another liquidation process.

By the way, the imprint of the state-owned newspaper Respublika also contains no subscription index. However, no warnings have been issued to it so far.