Homiel: Two Belsat TV contributors detained

In case of being placed in cus­tody, she might go on a hunger strike, the reporter said on Face­book.

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, Shchyrako­va was tak­en to the police sta­tion on charges of par­tic­i­pat­ing in unau­tho­rised mass events. How­ev­er, she was present at the protests as a jour­nal­ist and per­formed her pro­fes­sion­al duties. Then the police­men warned Larysa (who is a sin­gle moth­er) that her minor son might be tak­en away and sent to an orphan­age.

More­over, cam­era­man Andrey Tolchyn was grabbed by plain­clothes police­men on Sep­tem­ber, 11. He man­aged to send a short text (‘They have detained me”). Accord­ing to human rights defend­er Mikalai Novikau, the offi­cers said that Tolchyn would have to give expla­na­tion as part of some ‘crim­i­nal case’.

Since Fri­day after­noon, Belsat.eu has been get­ting reports about the policemen’s keep­ing watch over inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists’ res­i­dence places from dif­fer­ent cor­ners of the coun­try.