Authorities set prosecutor’s office against independent newspaper

Krychau district’s newspaper was accused of slander.  

The chief accountant of PMK-280 in Cherykau Anzhela Siamak via law enforcing agencies demands from the Krychau’s independent low-circulation newspaper Free Town to refute the information of salary payment delays at the enterprise.

In one of the issues of the Free Town in February information was published that workers of the PMK had not been paid their salaries for several months. According to what the chief accountant told BelaPAN, this is a slander. “There were no reasons for the publication. Suddenly that news item came out that we had not been paying salaries for three months, whereas he had”, - she said.

Siamak addressed Cherykau district prosecutor’s office, which in its turn sent her application to police for an inspection. Policemen from Krychau district’s police department have already interrogated the publisher and the editor-in-chief of the Free Town Siarhei Niarouny on the issue of the publication of the information about PMK-280.

According to Siamak, she does not demand a fine, but only a refutation. To the question why she addressed a prosecutor’s office but not the editorial office of the Free Town, the woman answered that she wanted respective agencies to be dealing with that.

In his turn, Niarouny claims that the information about salary delays at PMK-280 came from reliable sources. At the same time he is ready to refute this publication on the pages of the Free Town in case these facts are not confirmed. Niarouny is surprised that no one addressed the editorial office with a refutation demand and sees there an attempt of Cherykau’s authorities, which were mercilessly criticized by the media, to take their revenge by setting law enforcing agencies against the newspaper.