Ministry of Information: “We just decided this now for no special reasons!"
This is how the officials of the Ministry of Information explained their decision to close the newspapers "Nasha Niva" and "Narodnaya Volya" to Euroradio.
The Ministry of Information has addressed to the Supreme Economic Court asking to close the newspapers "Nasha Niva" and "Narodnaya Volya" on April 25. "Nasha Niva's" editor-in-chief Andrej Skurko has informed to Euroradio that he found this out only on April 27 in the afternoon, from BELTA news agency. Now, he says, the oldest Belarusian newspaper will defend its right to exist in court.
Andrej Slurko: “The very brand of "Nasha Niva" is older than the brand of the Ministry of Information. It has survived throughout all these years. We have a position to solve the problems upon their occurrence. We have a problem - we will solve it. We will take next steps in accordance with the further development of the situation”.
Let us remind you, the newspaper "Nasha Niva" was last warned on April 14. The reason for this was publication of false information that one of the terrorist act victims remained at the metro station till late at night on April 11. "Narodnaya Volya" was warned on April 15 for "publication of information which does not correspond with reality and damages the business reputation of the Belarusain State TV and Radio company".
Why the Ministry of Information addressed to the Supreme Economic Court with a demand to close the newspapers only now, the chief of the Ministry's legal administration department Halina Parkhimovich explained as follows:
“We just decided this now for no special reasons!"