Court defends “Sovetskaya Belorussia”: Name of Ksenofont Superfosfatov not disclosed

The court of the Savetski district of Minsk dismissed a claim of human rights activist Aleh Vouchak to "Sovetskaya Belorussia", a newspaper of Lukashenka’s Administration for defence of honour, dignity and business reputation.

The human rights activist demanded the newspaper to pay compensation of 70 million rubles and deny information he found insulting, Radio Svaboda reports.

Judge Eduard Yakubouski explained dismissal by the fact the newspaper allegedly referred to a number of other materials and other media. Aleh Vouchak is not satisfied with this decision. He thinks the newspaper was spreading libel against him and is going to appeal against the decision in the Minsk City Court.

"We haven’t received a motivation of the decision yet – I had to leave for a meeting with representatives of the diplomatic corps in Belarus. So, we’ll get this part later. As soon as we receive this part, we will appeal against this judgement," Aleh Vouchak told in an interview to BelaPAN.

According to him, there are enough reasons to appeal against the decision of the district court. The human rights activist reminded that according to the Law on Media, come into force since February 8 this year, reprinting of materials and using information of other media doesn’t release an edition from responsibility.

It should be reminded that an article "We have many oddities, and every oddball here is Beethoven!" was printed in the newspaper on March 6. An author of the article, Ksenofont Superfosfatov, wrote about human rights activists Aleh Vouchak and Yana Palyakova. He described an incident on a parking lot in 2003. According to the author Aleh Vouchak told media he had been attacked by secret services, though he had had no grounds, and called that revenge for his human rights activity. Vouchak denies information published in the article.

The public activist is also indignant at the words in the article saying Belarusian human rights activists can’t be called so. It should be noted that on the next day after the article had been published human rights activist from Salihorsk Yana Palyakova hanged herself in her flat.