Vitsebsk: printing house refuses to produce agitation leaflets in Tarashkevich orthography

04.09.2008. Tags: elections-2008.
Source: RFE/RL.

The head of the production department of Vitsebsk state printing house refused to print agitation leaflets for a candidate from the United democratic forces Tatsiana Seviarynets who runs at Vitsebsk-Horki electoral constituency #17, because of the ‘wrong’ orthography.

Mrs. Seviarynets explained that he read and wrote according to the tradition of Nasha Niva newspaper, but agreed to correction of her leaflets in conformity with the present official orthography of the Belarusian language.

Soon after this she received a call from the printing house. This time the head of the production department had pretensions to the content of the leaflet. She expressed doubts concerning the number of divorces and dipsomaniacs in Belarus, which were presented in the leaflet.

Finally the official said she needed to ‘consult’ with someone before printing the leaflets and promised to inform the candidate about the results of the ‘consultation’ the following day.

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