Trial Lohvinau against Information Ministry will take place on 18 November

The hearings will take place in the Supreme Commercial Court on the lawsuit to cancel the order that deprived the Lohvinau publishing house of a publishing license.

This came out in the outcome of the preliminary hearings on the case. They took place on Thursday 14 November. During the hearings both sides confirmed their standings. The consideration of the appeal will start on Monday at 12.00, the press-service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists reports.

The private publishing house Lohvinau receive an official notification from the Information Ministry on 23 September, saying that the house had been deprived of the license allowing for publisher’s activities. The license was revoked by the decision of the Ministry’s board “due to gross violations of the licensing legislation”. This is the matter of publishing the album Belarus Press-Photo 2011, which the court in Ashmiany found extremist on 18 April 2013. The Lohvinau publishing house issued the album.

On 23 October the publishing house registered a claim in the Supreme Commercial Court seeking to find the Ministry’s order invalid.

Hundreds of writer from all around the world, journalists and writers associations and creative unions also addressed to the Information Ministry of Belarus demanding to renew the license. They all point at the exclusive character of the publishing house, which supported and published the works of a broad circle of authors.