Information Ministry Refuses to React to Sivakou’s Article :: Charter'97 :: News

The head of the Legal Department of the Information Ministry Liliya Bogdan refused to comment the article of the former Interior Minister of Belarus Yury Sivakou in the magazine “Spetsnaz”, referring to the fact that she hadn’t read the article. The assistant of the Information Minister Viktar Kazlou in an interview to Deutsche Welle told: “We are not an institution of censorship. The Ministry can use punishments for different violations, for instance, there are technical parameters of this or that edition that cannot be changed. You were speaking about some magazine “Spetsnaz” and an article of some Sivakou. Why should the ministry comment on some article? We are following the observation of the Law on Press. In case judicial agencies would establish that the Law on Press had been violated, we would react”.

A retired Judge of the Constitutional Court Mikhail Pastukhou called the article “an outstanding incident and an attempt to revive Nazi spirit, which should put the society on the alert”. The Information Ministry is to react to rulings of judicial authorities, but, as noted by Pastukhou, when the matter concerns independent mass media, there are lots of occasions when they are punished on information from local law-enforcing agencies or from Prosecutor’s office without decision of the court. The absence of reaction of the Information Ministry, as said by Pastukhou, says that officials do not want to damage their comrades. It is an independent newspaper, but its founders are former military men.

As we have informed, in the magazine “Spetsnaz” of July 2006 an article “About honour” was published. The article was written by the former Interior Minister of Belarus Yury Sivakou, who is suspected by the world community in implication in abductions and assassinations of Belarusian opposition leaders. Sivakou offered readers of the “Spetsnaz” magazine to get acquainted with the code of officer’s honour written by Adolf Hitler.

Yury Sivakou proposed to adhere to the following principles of the Nazi officers:
“Love for Fuehrer, nation and fatherland must be supreme. That is why an officer must divide himself from those who set themselves apart from the German path and fight”.

“Honour is subject to attacks from the outside. Any insult or any doubts in the noble way of thinking affects honour”. “An officer must respond immediately to defamation by action, to prevent all attempts to assault him again”, and so on.