Rogachev’s civic activist fined for 3 million

On 12 October the Rogachev court took a decision on the law suit of the district’s newspaper “Svabodnae Slova” against the creator of a local web-site Dzianis Dashkevich.

The courts found him guilty of author’s rights violation (article 9.2 of the Administrative Code) and punished him with a fine of 3 million roubles.

The newspaper’s claim came down to the web-site vrogacheve.ru allegedly reposting information from the district newspaper’s web-site violating the author’s rights of the reporter, BelaPAN informs.

“The articles, to which the district’s newspaper referred to in the claim, - were the official reports of police and the district’s hospital saying that last winter six dwellers of Rogachev got frostbites. Though the court didn’t prove where the official report appeared first – on the web-site of the district’s newspaper of our web-site. They didn’t manage to prove in the court that I was an administrator of the web-site vrogacheve.ru. The official report is not an object of author’s rights. Can’t an ordinary person read and disseminate a police report?”, - the civic activist pointed out.

He added that the web-site vrogacheve.ru doesn’t have the contentious articles anymore as already in February the web-site was hacked and all the articles disappeared.

Dzianis Dashkevich will appeal against the court’s verdict.