English

Financial Investigations Department refuses to unblock bank account of intellectual magazine Arche

The office of the Financial Investigations Department of the State Control Committee in Minsk and the Minsk region has rejected a request by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) to unblock the bank account of the Belarusian-language intellectual magazine Arche.

In its reply, the office says that the account was frozen because of the failure of the magazine to provide its financial records to auditors.

Given that some of the required papers are missing even now, there are no grounds for granting the BAJ's request, the office says.

"The acting editor in chief of the magazine insists that all records had been submitted to the office," BAJ spokesman Barys Haretski told BelaPAN. "That is why we're puzzled by its reply."

The crackdown on Arche began with the arrest of Valer Bulhakaw, who was then its editor in chief, during a book-launch event in Hrodna on September 14. He was charged with illegal business activities for selling a book titled, Sovietization of Western Belarus, without a license and sentenced to a fine of 500,000 rubels ($58) a month later.

On September 21, the Financial Investigations Department started to audit the magazine's records and subsequently froze its bank account.

At the end of October, television channel Belarus One broadcast a report accusing the magazine of extremism and Nazi propaganda.

In early November, Mr. Bulhakaw fled Belarus for fear of imprisonment.