Belarusian Publishing House refused to print newspaper “Tovarisch”

14.10.2004.

Belarusian Publishing House refused to print next issue of the edition of Central Committee of PCB “Tovarisch”. Firstly, the editorial team said that the institution does not have enough “technical possibilities” to print the issue and than informed that the management of the newspaper should have forwarded the request to publish the newspaper with bigger circulation in advance.

On October 13 the editorial team ordered a 30000 circulation of the newspaper instead of usual 7000. 23 000 were planned to be freely distributed. On October 13 the publishing house accepted this order without any questions. But already in the morning on October 14 the chief editor of publication Siarhey Vazniak was said that when ordering a bigger circulation a special request form should be submitted.

In this issue of the newspaper the text of “straight line” of the candidate, the leader of PCB, Siarhey Kaliakin with the readers on the topic of Referendum should have been printed. The main slogan of the issue – “In favour of Belarus and against Lukashenka!”

Mr. Vazniak is sure that the newspaper was denied after the publication house read the plot of the issue. And explanation that the publication house does not “possess enough technical appliances” he considers to be baseless at all after the same publication house printed 863000 samples of “Savietskaja Belarus”.

Belarusian Journalists Association Press-Service
“SPRING” INFORMATION DEPARTMENT