Journalists targeted by raids for second consecutive day UPDATED

23:18. Law enforce­ment offi­cers on Fri­day raid­ed the homes of jour­nal­ists of the pop­u­lar Homieĺ online pub­li­ca­tion Sil­nyye Novosti (Strong News).

Accord­ing to Piotr Kuz­ni­a­coŭ, the publication’s founder and direc­tor, tar­get­ed by police raids were the home of Edi­tor in Chief Han­na Jakš­tas and her hus­band, jour­nal­ist Dzia­n­is Jakš­tas, as well as the homes of jour­nal­ist Iry­na Voĺska­ja and Jaŭhieni­ja Kraščyk, head of the publication’s adver­tis­ing depart­ment.

Mr. Kuz­ni­a­coŭ said on his Telegram chan­nel that the home of Ms. Jakš­tas’ grand­moth­er was searched on Fri­day after­noon.

The Sil­nyye Novosti team lat­er said that search­es were also being con­duct­ed at the homes of jour­nal­ists Natal­lia Susla­va, Juryj Hlušakoŭ, Sni­ažana Pahodz­i­na and Kacia­ry­na Cie­li­man, with equip­ment being seized.

Mr. and Mrs. Jakš­tas report­ed­ly had equip­ment and mobile phones seized. They were not arrest­ed.

Lat­er in the day, Mr. Kuz­ni­a­coŭ was also report­ed to have his home raid­ed.

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), at least 29 search­es were con­duct­ed in the homes of jour­nal­ists and the edi­to­r­i­al offices of non-state media out­lets on Thurs­day and Fri­day, with sev­en media work­ers arrest­ed. A total of 32 media work­ers are cur­rent­ly in cus­tody in Belarus, the BAJ said.

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Min­sk, 9 July. Raids tar­get­ing jour­nal­ists con­tin­ued for a sec­ond day in Belarus on Fri­day.

A search was being con­duct­ed at the Min­sk home of Anas­tasi­ja Zańko, a jour­nal­ist of the onliner.by news por­tal, accord­ing to the Naša Niva online pub­li­ca­tion.

In addi­tion, there were reports of a search at the home of jour­nal­ist Mak­sim Chli­a­biec in Brest. It was not imme­di­ate­ly known in the frame­work of what case the raid was being con­duct­ed.

At least 15 media work­ers and activists were arrest­ed on Thurs­day. They includ­ed four rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the pop­u­lar online pub­li­ca­tion Naša Niva, name­ly Edi­tor in Chief Jahor Mar­ci­novič, edi­tor Andrej Skurko, promi­nent jour­nal­ist Andrej Dyńko and chief accoun­tant Voĺha Rakovič.

Appear­ing on the Belarus One tele­vi­sion chan­nel on Thurs­day, a senior KGB offi­cer linked the raids and arrests to a “large-scale oper­a­tion to purge rad­i­cal­ly mind­ed peo­ple.”