The Borisovskiye novosti newspaper editor warned

26.08.2005.

The procurator's office of Barysau issued on 25 August an official warning to the senior editor of the independent newspaper Borisovskiye novosti Anatol Bukas. The warning says that if the violations identified repeat themselves, the Procurator's office "will decide on a suite to suspend" the periodical.
According to BAJ, the reason for the warning was two articles entitled "One-way trial" published in numbers 26 and 27 in June – July and dedicated to the court proceedings in the case against A.Bukas. The procurator's office believes that these articles violated Article 5 of the Law on the Press that bans publication or public disclosure of the materials still considered to be court case materials without the written permission of the judge. The procurator's office claims that the verdict in the case against A.Bukas came into effect after the mentioned articles were published: although the court of Barysau district passed the ruling on 16 June, the appeals court upheld it only on 22 July. Thus, so far the criminal case was not completed, says the procurator's office.
The lawyers of the Media Legal Assistance Center of the Belarusian Association of Journalists on their part emphasize that the articles did not contain any quotations from the case materials. In his own words the journalist retold what he had seen and felt during the open proceedings in court.
The check that led to the warning issued to A. Bukas was held on the basis of the appeal from the newspaper editor Barysau City Executive Committee Adzinstva Vera Pratasievich. We would like to remind you that she was the main character of critical article published in March 2004, which was why Anatol Bukas was found guilty of violating two articles of the Criminal Code. On 16 June the court imposed on him a fine worth 40 basic units and awarded three million ruble worth of moral damages to Vera Pratasevich.