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Journalist in Brest given prosecutorial warning for cooperating with Radio Racyja

The Brest Regional Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday issued a formal warning to freelance journalist Maksim Khlyabets for cooperating with a foreign media outlet that has no accreditation status in Belarus, Polish-based Radio Racyja.

A prosecutor handed the warning to Mr. Khlyabets when he came to the Brest Regional Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday morning, reported the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ).

In the paper, the Office says that two articles by Mr. Khlyabets were posted on Racyja’s website in March 2013 and warns that he may be punished if he continues to cooperate with foreign media outlets lacking accreditation status.

In March 2014, Mr. Khlyabets was questioned by police about his activities as a journalist. Police officers tried to talk him into “cooperating” with them, but he refused to have anything to do with them and reported the conversation to the media. Mr. Khlyabets described the warning as another effort to either intimidate him and make him more “cooperative” or force him to stop his work.

According to the BAJ, five other journalists have received prosecutorial warnings this year for cooperating with foreign media outlets without accreditation status in Belarus. They include Yury Dzyashuk, Yawhen Skrabets, Yuliya Sivets, Mikalay Byanko, and Svyatlana Stsyapanava. Nine journalists were warned in 2013. //BelaPAN