Homel Journalist Appealed To UN Committee For Help

Natallia Kryvashei sent a complaint to the UN Committee on Human Rights due to violation of the right to receive and disseminate information.

In 2015, district courts of Homel region fined the journalist four times for the “illegal mass media production” with no accreditation for the satellite Belsat TV channel. The amount of fines totaled to Br24.3 million.

“All of those cases I have listed in my complaint. And, as I have tried all the possible degrees of legal protection in Belarus (even wrote to the prosecutor, but it had no effect), I decided to defend my rights at the international level”, – Natallia Kryvashei said to the press service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

A lawyer Leanid Sudalenka is to appear for Natallia Kryvashei in the UN Committee. He notes that the freelancer’s case has revealed a number of contradictions between the national legislation and international treaties ratified by Belarus, because the national media law excessively restricts the very essence of the right to gather and disseminate information.

“I have no doubt that international experts will find a violation of Natallia Kryvashei’s right to receive and disseminate information in her case. The police, which draw up administrative protocols, and the courts, which give astronomical fines, say nothing about the veracity of freelancer’s materials, but only argue that to gather and disseminate information is prohibited,” – the lawyer says.

Previously, two other Homel journalists – Mikalai Bianko and Kanstantsin Zhukouski – sent similar complaints to the UN Committee.