Belarus detains and fines journalist for filming police attacking protesters

Dabravol­s­ki is a mem­ber of the BAJ. He was arrest­ed while he was cov­er­ing a hear­ing where two sup­port­ers were protest­ing in the court with a ban­ner say­ing “stop polit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tion”. In a videorecord­ing the hear­ing, the police pushed the pro­test­ers out­side the court­room while they were shout­ting “art is not a crime”. Jour­nal­ists present in the court room fol­lowed the police and filmed the process.

Dabravol­s­ki was among the jour­nal­ists film­ing the police beat­ing the pro­test­ers. He was beat­en and arrest­ed togeth­er with the two pro­test­ers. He was then tak­en to the police sta­tion and charged with “con­tempt of court” (Arti­cle 24.1 of Belarus Code on Admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es) and “dis­obey­ing the offi­cials’ legal demands” (Arti­cle 23.4 of Belarus Code on admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es).

Mogens Blich­er Bjer­regård, the EFJ Pres­i­dent said, “It is clear that Dabravol­s­ki has com­mit­ted no crime. He was mere­ly there doing his job to report on abus­es by the author­i­ty.”

“The police must drop all the charges against Dabravol­s­ki,” demand­ed Blich­er Bjer­regård.

Pho­to Cred­it : Vadim Samirovsky, TUT.BY