Prosecutor’s office opens a criminal case over abuse of power against the owner of the online media outlet Media-Polesye

March 14, BPN. Luniniec District Prosecutor’s Office (Brest region) opened a criminal case under Article 424 of the Criminal Code (abuse of power) against the director and founder of MP Company, owning the independent online media outlet Media-Polesye.

Maksim Harda is the director of the company.

“Brest Regional Prosecutor’s Office has repeatedly found violations of media legislation in the online media outlet Media-Polesye since 2020,” the press service of the General Prosecutor’s Office reported. “For instance, there were facts inaccurate information publication aimed at stirring up the situation and forming a negative attitude towards the authorities, while in some cases extremist materials were published. The owner of the media outlet, MP Company LLC, was brought to administrative responsibility four times in 2020-2021 for such violations. However, measures to remedy the situation have not been taken. Eventually, at the initiative of the Brest Region Prosecutor’s Office, access to this online media outlet was restricted.”

The Prosecutor’s Office claimed that MP Company officials “repeatedly violated the rights of their employees.” “For over two years, the director and founder of the organization failed to pay taxes and mandatory contributions to the Social Security Fund and Belgosstrakh for certain employees.”

“Off the books payments not only deprived workers of the opportunity to include this period in their employment record for pension calculations, but also caused damage to the state in the amount of over 10 thousand rubles,” said the General Prosecutor’s Office.

Editor-in-chief of Media-Polesye, Sviatlana Harda said that the news portal will keep working.

According to Harda, the authorities tried to close the website for “stirring up the situation and creating a negative public opinion of the authorities,” although the prosecutor’s office “never presented a single corroborating publication.” They tried to “strangle us with fines, finding us guilty of ‘threatening the national security of the country’ four times for truthful publications.”

“I was expecting a criminal case, but I just couldn’t guess what article it would be, because the searches of the house and the office were conducted as part of the case [under the article] “Act of Terrorism.” It didn’t work out with that. They decided to prosecute for abuse of power… In the company that I had created”, said Media-Polesye editor-in-chief.

Media-Polesye has been operating since June 2012, covering Luniniec, Pinsk, and Stolin districts of the Brest region.

On July 8, 2021, the editorial office, as well as employees’ and the editor-in-chief’s homes were searched within criminal proceedings under Article 289 of the Criminal Code (act of terrorism).

On July 28, 2021, the Luniniec District Court fined MP Company LLC 199 basic units (5,771 BYN) for rewriting an article about the events in Pinsk in August 2020. The article in question was titled “The trial of the second group of defendants in the ‘Pinsk case’ starts in Brest.” The court found MP Company guilty of publishing incorrect information in the statement that “the Pinsk judges refused to conduct the trial, so the defendants were transferred to Brest.”