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Information ministry issues another formal warning to Nasha Niva

Nasha Niva, a leading Belarusian private newspaper under threat of closure, has received one more formal warning from the Ministry of Information.

The official grounds for the warning was the newspaper’s failure to indicate its subscription number in the June 1 issue. The publication had previously placed its subscription number in the "Information for Readers" section on Page Two. In the June 1 issue, the section was replaced by an article titled, “Supreme Economic Court Paves the Way for Nasha Niva’s Closure.” All other issues carried the subscription number.

The information ministry needed the warning to substantiate its closure suit against the newspaper, as the validity of two previous warnings expires on July 22 and July 26, Nasha Niva says in a statement.

Under Belarusian regulations, a publication may be closed down by a court decision if it has received two or more formal warnings from the information ministry within a year.

The two warnings issued last year were the grounds for the closure suit that the ministry filed with the Supreme Economic Court on April 27.

Nasha Niva received those warnings for its coverage of “Kryostny Batska” (The Godbatska), a scandalous documentary about Alyaksandr Lukashenka that was produced last year by Russia's government-controlled NTV channel and censored from the channel's version broadcast in Belarus.

On April 14, the ministry issued a new warning to Nasha Niva, this time for its coverage of the April 11 Minsk subway bombing, which the ministry said caused “damage to public interests.”

In May, the Supreme Economic Court suspended proceedings on the closure suit against Nasha Niva until after the paper’s appeal against the April 14 warning was heard.

The Court dismissed the appeal on May 30 and the closure proceedings are expected to resume on July 12.

If the information ministry fails to have the newspaper closed down soon, it will be able to use the fresh warning to file a new closure suit, Nasha Niva notes in its statement. //BelaPAN