TAA Dienpress is liquidated by the authorities – its head found out about this one and a half month later

23.08.2005.

Minsk City Executive Committee liquidated the limited company Dienpress that is the publisher of the non-state newspaper Dien. According to the newspaper editor Mikola Markievich, the authorities have made this step to stop this periodical, reported Radio Liberty.
All along the Dien had problems with the legal address and persecution instigated by the authorites. But despite the pressure, the periodical continued, it published an issue dated 26 May, which, however, was seized by the police near the Belarus-Russia border.
The decision to liquidate the limited company Dienpress was signed on 4 July on the basis of a document submitted by the taxation inspectorate of Tsentralny Borough of Minsk. The reason quoted was "failure of the limited company to conduct business activity during 6 months in a row and failure to inform the taxation agency of the reasons".
The head of TAA Dienpress Mikola Markievich found out about this decision of the Minsk authorities only on 19 August. Liquidation of the founder means automatic liquidation of the newspaper. "When the people struggling with us saw that despite all the reprisals we are still there, and the newspaper is surviving, that it will again reach the people, they decided to eliminate it as such", says Mikola Markievich. He believes that the authorities have deliberately tried to make sure this case does not look related to the problem with freedom of speech in Belarus.
In fact TAA Dienpress was involved with economic activity, so Mr. Markievich does not believe the decision taken by Minsk City Executive Committee to be legal and is planning to appeal against it in court, though Mikola Markievich does not believe the Belarusian justice is fair.

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