Belarusian Union of Journalists (BUJ) said that the EU was not logical to include the media representatives in a "black list." This was reported by the chairman of the organization, the chief editor of the newspaper "Respublika" Anatoli Lemeshenok. "The list of banned is an illogical step, not corresponding to the level of adults, involved in politics," he said.
In particular, it is unclear to the chief editor why the chief editor of the newspaper «Sovetskaia Belorussia» Pavel Yakubovich and some of his stuff got under sanctions. According to the BUJ head, many media workers «were surprised to learn» that they had been forbidden to enter the European Union, while the deputies of Pavel Yakubovich «cover subjects of agriculture, work with readers and have no relation to the coverage of political events,» BELTA .
Anatoli Lemeshenok believes that it’s not right to approach the situation that way and does not understand how the union should work with foreign partners and journalists’ associations in such conditions, as «there has recently been a normalization of dialogue between civil society of the republic and the West.»
«If a few years ago the European institutions preferred to deal mainly with the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which position was often overly biased towards the processes in Belarus, today more and more journalistic communities are getting in contact with the Belarusian Union of Journalists. They were convinced that it was BUJ to have united the majority of Belarusian journalist communities and influence the world of mass media,» said Anatoli Lemeshenok.
Chief Editor of «Respublika» believes that it’s unproductive to refuse contact with Western journalists. «We are ready to meet for further dialogue. Another thing is that this dialogue will always appear awkward, especially for the visitors, feeling shame for the actions of their governments,» he said.
As Telegraf previously reported, legal portal of the European Union published a legal document list of the Belarusian government officials and sanctions, applied to them, on February 2.
In particular, it included BTRC former and current chairmen Alexander Zimovski and Gennadi Davydko, general director of «Stolichnoe Televidenie» Yuri Koziyatko, Chief Editor of newspaper «Sovetskaia Belorussia» Pavel Yakubovich and his deputy Alexander Taranda, Sergei Gordienko, Halina Toropetzkaia and Anna Shadrina, Chief Editor of newspaper «Respublika» Anatoli Lemeshenok, journalist of «Pervi» Channel Yuri Prokopov, journalist ONT Alex Mikhalchenko, CEO of state information agency BelTA Dmitri Zhuk and Chief Editor of magazine «Belarusskaia Dumka» Vadim Gigin.
