Authorities block Naša Niva’s website, arrest its editor in chief UPDATED

18:00. Jahor Mar­ci­novič, edi­tor in chief of the pop­u­lar online pub­li­ca­tion Naša Niva, has been placed in cus­tody for 72 hours.

Accord­ing to Naša Niva, Mr. Mar­ci­novič is a sus­pect in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings under Part One of the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 342, which penal­izes “orga­niz­ing or tak­ing an active part in group actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order.”

He has report­ed­ly been placed in the deten­tion cen­ter on Akreści­na Street in Min­sk.

15:50. Jahor Mar­ci­novič, edi­tor in chief of the Naša Niva online pub­li­ca­tion, was seen being led away by two plain­clothes­men after a search at his apart­ment in Min­sk on Thurs­day.

In a video post­ed on Euroradio’s Telegram chan­nel, Mr. Mar­ci­novič appeared to have his hands cuffed behind his back as he was being escort­ed by the men from his apart­ment build­ing to a vehi­cle.

Naša Niva report­ed on its Telegram chan­nel that its edi­tor Andrej Skurko had been tak­en by law enforce­ment offi­cers for ques­tion­ing after a search at his home.

Mr. Mar­ci­novič was arrest­ed as he was walk­ing his dog on Thurs­day morn­ing. He was lat­er brought to his apart­ment by masked offi­cers. “A search is under­way at the apart­ment. Fam­i­ly mem­bers have been kicked out of the apart­ment,” said the pub­li­ca­tion, adding that it was still unclear in the frame­work of what case the raid was being con­duct­ed.

Accord­ing to Naša Niva, offi­cers of the inte­ri­or ministry’s cen­tral office searched the office of the publication’s account­ing depart­ment, seiz­ing doc­u­ments. After­ward, a search was con­duct­ed at the home of the organization’s chief accoun­tant, Voĺha Rakovič.

The home of Deputy Edi­tor in Chief Andrej Dyńko was also report­ed­ly raid­ed.

The web­site of Naša Niva, nn.by, was blocked by the infor­ma­tion min­istry at the request of the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office on Thurs­day morn­ing.

Naša Niva said that some mem­bers of its team were stay­ing abroad.

Spokesper­sons for the inte­ri­or min­istry and the Com­mit­tee for State Secu­ri­ty could not be reached for com­ment on Thurs­day after­noon. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee told Bela­PAN that he had no infor­ma­tion about any pos­si­ble inquiry against Naša Niva.

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Naša Niva Edi­tor in Chief Jahor Mar­ci­novič was report­ed arrest­ed on Thurs­day morn­ing. In addi­tion, the pub­li­ca­tion report­ed on social media that its jour­nal­ists could not get in touch with a num­ber of oth­er staff and that a search was being con­duct­ed at the home of its edi­tor, Andrej Skurko.

Police vehi­cles were seen out­side the build­ing in Min­sk where Naša Niva’s office is locat­ed.

Voĺha Čamadana­va, spokesper­son for the inte­ri­or min­istry, could not be reached for com­ment on Thurs­day morn­ing.

The infor­ma­tion min­istry said on July 8 that the publication’s web­site, nn.by, had been blocked at the request of the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office in con­nec­tion with the dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­tent banned under the Media Law