Press Club Belarus case: Five persons detained

Press Club, Belaru­sian media work­ers’ meet­ing point and a venue for lec­tures and dis­cus­sions on the cur­rent social and polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, is financed, inter alia, by EU coun­tries.

On Decem­ber 21, Press Club Belarus founder Yuliya Slut­skaya was detained at the air­port upon her arrival in Min­sk and tak­en to the Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions.

Yet at the same time, the police searched the flats of Press Club Pro­gram­ming Direc­tor Ala Sharko and Direc­tor Syarhei Alsheus­ki. The offi­cers also raid­ed the home of Media Acad­e­my Pro­gram Direc­tor Syarhei Yaku­pau, the office of the inde­pen­dent organ­i­sa­tion, and Slutskaya’s apart­ment in Min­sk.

“This repres­sion must stop imme­di­ate­ly. We demand the release of Yuliya and all her col­leagues. We call on the Euro­pean Union, the Coun­cil of Europe and the OSCE to react vig­or­ous­ly to this new wave of repres­sion,” Mogens Blich­er Bjer­regård, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ), said.

On Tues­day evening, the Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions said they were run­ning a check on the fact of alleged tax vio­la­tions by Press Club Belarus. Accord­ing to the press ser­vice, the case is linked to ‘receiv­ing large sums of mon­ey from abroad’.

To date, it is known that Slut­skaya, Sharko and Alsheus­ki were placed in the noto­ri­ous deten­tion cen­tre in Akrestsin Street in Min­sk; Yaku­pau is being held in the Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions. In addi­tion, Press Club cam­era­man Pyotr Slut­s­ki was tak­en into cus­tody,

As report­ed ear­li­er, Belaru­sian For­eign Min­is­ter Uladz­imir Makey announced lim­it­ing the activ­i­ties of a num­ber of foun­da­tions in Belarus and review­ing their human­i­tar­i­an, edu­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al pro­grams in the wake of the third pack­age of sanc­tions imposed on Belaru­sian offi­cials by the Euro­pean Union. It is known that Press Club Belarus launched a num­ber of its edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams in coop­er­a­tion with the embassies of sev­er­al EU mem­ber states.