Journalist from Homel charged with “violating law on media”

Journalist Larysa Shchyrakova is charged with violating article 22.9 of the Code of Administrative Offences (violating the law on the mass media).

The charge was brought by Yury Panin, the head of the order department of Homel's Tsentralny district police department, BelaPAN reports.

The police based their charge on the evidence of traders at the town's central market who said that Larysa Shchyrakova had filmed them.

A story about an increase in taxes for sole traders appeared on Belsat TV on January 13, 2015. According to the police report, the police received an answer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that Larysa Shchyrakova wasn't accredited as a journalist of a foreign TV channel.

“The country is in a difficult economic state, the presidential elections are coming, so they harass journalists. As soon as serious problems arise in the economy, journalists become number one enemy because they show the reality as it is, in its true colours,” the journalist says.

In January 2015, Shchyrakova and her colleague Kanstantsin Zhukouski were tried in Svetlahorsk allegedly for participating in an unsanctioned picket. They were fined 900,000 rubles each. Journalists were making a story about a picket organised by local disabled activist Yury Liashenka. The police accused the journalists of taking part in the picket.

Larysa Shchyrakova earlier received an official warning from a prosecutor's office for working without accreditation. The police repeatedly interfered with her work and detained her several times.