Candidate’s Radio Addresses Liable to Censorship :: Charter'97 :: News

Chairman of the Vitebsk regional organization of the Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada) Aleksei Gavrutikov deems that radio speeches of some of the candidates for the deputies of the local councils are exposed to censorship. BelaPAN reports that on February 6 the radio address of the candidate from the Vitebsk region Aleksei Gavrutikov has been removed from air. In his speech the man addressed the region’s prosecutor with a request to find out why the high-ranking officials of the region and Vitebsk violate the “Law on citizens’ appeals”, not responding to the social-democrats’ inquiry for two months.

Specialists from the regional TV radio association refused to broadcast that speech and filed an inquiry over its content to the Central Electoral Commission. According to Aleksei Gavrutikov, CEC ruled that one of the passages contains insult against the officials, which is the reason why it can’t be on air. “In my speech I pointed out the government’s violation of Constitution, which was wrongly mistaken for an insult,” – said the candidate in an interview to BelaPAN.

On Saturday instead of the full text of Gavrutikov’s speech they broadcasted it with removed parts, which CEC considered abusive for no good reason.

Moreover, on Saturday the editor of the local television and radio took off from air the speech of another Vutebsk regional candidate from BSDP (NG) Ivan Prokopets – the only competitor at the elections into the Vitebsk town hall in the 29th constituency to the acting chairman Gennady Gritskevich.

“I believe that these acts gravely violate art.33 of the state Constitution, which bans censorship,” – said Aleksei Gavrutikov: “Under the law they simply have to punish me if I said something wrong, but can’t remove my address before it was broadcasted. Our party representatives have biased treatment.”