“Lohvinau” book shop faces Br 1 bn fine

The iconic place for intellectuals of the Belarusian capital is threatened now.

An unscheduled tax audit took place in the shop of “Lohvinau” (Logvinov) in early December, “Nasha Niva” informs. The premises were sealed off, and documents were seized for examination. After the audit the shop was opened. However the penalty for working without a licence from the Information Ministry was severe.

In accordance with the results of the audit, the book shop was fined 1 billion Belarusian rubles – which was the amount of books’ sale over the year. This sum is to be recovered by court.

The owner of the shop, Ihar Lohvinau, noted that in 2014 he addressed the Information Ministry 8 times and asked for a licence. However he was denied every time. One of the denials was explained by the fact that he indicated a wrong postcode.

Last year the Information Ministry revoked the publisher's licence of “Lohvinau” publishing house for the album Belarus Press Photo 2011. The album was found “extremist”.

The book store is a place of book presentations and an extremely important place for the national culture and literature.

At the moment the book store has resumed its usual work.

In 2012 Ales Yaudakha was convicted for distribution of Belarusian books. He was sending books by post. Claims were laid to him after he started to disseminate a publication “Young Front members”. The tax inspection and the Financial Investigations Department discovered “illegal enterprise” in his actions, a case was opened. In July 2012 Yaudakha was sentenced to a year of restriction of freedom without sending him to penal facilities (a so-called “home corrective labour”). He started to serve his term since October 15, 2012. In addition, it was decided to order to collect from him 54 mln 53 thousand 600 rubles as compensation of damages and 2 mln 726 thousand 820 rubles of state duty.