Police in Grodno reject complaint from journalist :: Charter'97 :: News

A district police department in Grodno has rejected a complaint by a staff writer with the newspaper Zhoda against members of one district and three precinct election commissions who barred her from polling stations during a repeat parliamentary vote held in the district on March 20.

Journalist Alena Andreyeva failed to produce her accreditation card and the newspaper`s registration certificate at the request of election officers. The central election commission later said that the requirement was illegal.

Ms. Andreyeva filed the complaint with the Leninsky district prosecutor’s office, demanding bringing criminal charges against the officers. She said that they had prevented her from performing her professional functions.

Vladimir Sychevsky, chief of the Leninsky district police department, said in a reply that the journalist had behaved “impertinently and incorrectly,” and that an inquiry had established that the chairpersons and secretaries of the commissions had not committed any criminally punishable acts.

Mr. Sychevsky proposed that Ms. Andreyeva should appeal to the regional police department or the district prosecutor’s office, or go to court if she found the reply inappropriate.
In an interview with BelaPAN, the journalist noted that the prosecutor’s office should not have resent the complaint to the police department, as the latter is not authorized to institute criminal proceedings.

“I see this as the prosecutor’s office’s reluctance to take responsibility to consider a complaint of the kind,” Ms. Andreyeva said. “Anyway, I`m going to file another complaint with the Leninsky district prosecutor’s office in Grodno and file a lawsuit to claim damages for the infringement upon my professional rights,” she noted.