English

Information ministry re-registers intellectual magazine Arche

The information ministry has granted an application for the re-registration of the Belarusian-language intellectual magazine Arche, BelaPAN said.

In a reply to the applicant, Information Minister Aleh Pralyaskowski says that the magazine was re-registered on May 22, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

This was the fourth application for the re-registration of Arche since November 2012. The information ministry rejected the previous ones on technical grounds in what many viewed as a campaign to close the magazine.

The crackdown on Arche began with the arrest of Valer Bulhakaw, who was then its editor in chief, during a book-launch event in Hrodna on September 14, 2012. He was charged with illegal business activities for selling a book titled, Sovietization of Western Belarus, without a license and sentenced to a fine of 500,000 rubels ($58) a month later.

On September 21, the Financial Investigations Department started to audit the magazine's records and subsequently froze its bank account.

At the end of October, television channel Belarus One broadcast a report accusing the magazine of extremism and Nazi propaganda.

In early November, Mr. Bulhakaw fled Belarus for fear of imprisonment.

However, the Financial Investigations Department notified Arche last month that its bank account had been unblocked, and that no criminal case will be opened against Mr. Bulhakaw under the Criminal Code’s Article 243, which penalizes tax evasion.