The Trial on ‘Press-Photo’ Albums Expected to Be Secretive
A photo reporter Yulia Darashkevich has shared the news in her FB account. As the ‘person concerned’, she is going to attend the court session on April 17, 2013.
Ms Darashkevich’s attorney got acquainted with the photo album legal examination materials lately. The journalist posted the text in the social networks. “The legal investigators banned taking pictures of materials of the case. Therefore, the text was hand-written and typed later on”, she explained.
According to the text, the experts had claims on the album photos and cutlines to them.
Here is a selection of quotations from the experts’ findings:
“Photo Materials in the ‘News’ Section”
The caption to photo (page 20) “The police-beaten protest meeting participant is lying near the House of Government walls” contains flagrant lie, presented by the author’s own invention in the form of rude characteristic of qualities and actions of law-enforcement officers with the use of ‘police-beaten’ expression. Thus, the top brass members are presented as arbitrary acting and dangerous people and lawbreakers as well as potential sources of trouble, evoking fears and apprehensions. The attributed low moral qualities and illegal actions of law-enforcement soldiers and officers (i.e., abuse of power) contradict to the roundly accepted moral norms, defame them and disparage the public authorities, undermine confidence in the government on the part of foreign states as well as foreign and international organizations.
The caption to photo (page 20) “The torn state banner is lying after a protest action in the street” presents the author’s own invention and belittles the State symbol of Belarus, the honor and dignity of Belarusian people.
Photo Materials in the ‘People in the News’ Section
A photo material on page 33 with the caption “A person stands on the portrait of the acting president Aliaksandr Lukashenka during a meeting, arranged by opposition candidates” defames the Head of State and the whole Belarusian people, who elected the President by its will. It defames the national honor and dignity of Belarusian people, drops the President’s authority among the Belarusian nationals and foreigners;
The caption to photo on page 36 “Young people help a woman, who was wounded during a protest action against the Presidential election fraud”, contains the author’s note ‘Presidential election fraud’ that can be regarded as the repeated and purposeful interference in the outcome of Presidential election campaigns in Belarus, the deliberate data corruption and interpretation with the aim of getting the personal profit. The use of ‘Presidential election fraud’ word combination in this context in relation to the Head of State presents the author’s personal inventions and manifests distribution of false information, contradicting to the official data of the Central Election Committee of Belarus. The information belittles the authority of public bodies in Belarus and undermines the confidence in the government on the part of foreign states as well as foreign and international organizations.
Photo Materials in the ‘Daily Life’ Section
A photo on page 51 with the caption “Men try on hats at a street fair” presents the inhabitants of the Belarusian settlement and all Belarusian people in general in their persons as miserable tramps against the background of Western garments. Dissemination of such information in mass media forms the retorted vision of Belarusian people, disparages the Belarusians’ national honor and dignity and evokes the readers’ negative attitude to Belarus as a whole.
Photo Materials in the ‘Portrait’ Section
A photo on page 87 was deliberately shot from the viewpoint, in order to present the Head of state unattractively. The illustration offends the President of Belarus, belittles his authority and undermines confidence in him on the part of foreign states and citizens of the Republic of Belarus.
Photo Materials in the ‘Sport’ Section (pages 118-126) present elements of Belarusian sport life from the poor aesthetic perspective. Some illustrations are disgraceful. Generally, the photos demonstrate the sphere of Belarusian public life from the negative viewpoint.
Photo Materials in the ‘Nature’ Section (pages 142-145) present the process of picking, processing and canning mushrooms against the background of radioactivity danger sign. The photos illustrate allegorically the miserable state of Belarusian nation and its nature.
