Answering for insulting the policeman: blogger was fined through court

The complainant Ihar Dunko stated that he was offended by the note of the blogger. He went through an inquiry at work; his relatives and friends thought he was unworthy employee.

On January 19 the Kastrychnitski district court of Minsk fined a famous blogger Alena Melnikava (under a pen-name of Stohava) for 3 600 000 rubles (around 250USD) for writing about the mentovskaya strana” (police country), press-service of BAJ informs.

The police officer did not allow blogger to enter the subway because she was drunk. The disappointed blogger later wrote a blog using words “menty”, “mentovskaya strana” (informal word for policeman, has slightly derogative meaning, but is widely used by population and in movies), “I hate you with all my soul”. The blog went viral, and the subway employees decided to publish the video compilation of the blogger’s behavior.

The police officer filed a lawsuit, stating he had been insulted. The main argument was that she had taken a photo of him and published in the blog, too, so all the words were addressed to him personally.

The blogger confirmed it was her blog, but did not pledge guilty. She said she expressed her attitude to the situation, but not to this particular police officer. The officer said his mother had been very offended, too, and then there was an inquiry at work. It turned out, for 20 years, he did not have any disciplinary penalties.

As Euroradio recalls, the scandal broke out in early December last year, when metro employees did not let the blogger on the platform. According to them, the blogger and PR expert was drunk and could get hurt. The girl strongly protested against being left out of public transport services and wrote a controversial post about this, where she used the phrase mentioned earlier.

The story was greeted with a lot of attention in social networks and the media, and then the subway decided to publish a video from surveillance cameras. It shows the moment of the incident. The opinions on the behavior of metro employees and the state of Alena Melnikava divided.