Ministry of Justice of Belarus filed a lawsuit to liquidate the Belarusian Association of Journalists

The Ministry of Justice of Belarus filed a lawsuit to liquidate the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) due to “rejection of measures to eliminate violations and repeated violations of the law”, it says in the department’s Telegram channel.

Earlier, the Belarusian Justice Ministry issued a warning to the BAJ for “violating the legislation on public associations”. According to the Ministry of Justice, the department demanded to identify and eliminate violations, but the BAJ allegedly did not do this.

On July 20, it became known that the BAJ bank account was arrested based on the decision of the Investigative Committee of Belarus dated July 14, 2021.

On July 14, searches were carried out in the Belarusian Association of Journalists and the apartments of its leaders. In addition to the BAJ, the security forces visited the offices of 23 more organizations.

Searches took place not only in Minsk, but also in Grodno, Brest, Orsha, Borisov, Gomel, Polotsk. Prior to this, the Belarusian authorities banned access to one of the country’s oldest news resources, the website of the Nasha Niva newspaper.