Hantsavitski Chas newspaper and its publisher’s home searched by police

Among the police offi­cers was chief of the Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion of local police depart­ment Dzmit­ry Yurchyk. In about an hour the police left the office, tak­ing the news­pa­per’s chief edi­tor Piotr Huza­yeus­ki along.

The police don’t seem to have seized any­thing from the office. The police men­tioned in the begin­ning of the search that it had been ordered in Drahichyn. There, a new crim­i­nal case for «insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus» has been launched recent­ly. The sus­pect in the case is Siarhei Hardziye­vich, reporter of 1reg.by. 

The police con­tin­ued with the search of the home of Piotr Huza­yeus­ki, pub­lish­er of both Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas and 1reg.by. There they seized his com­put­er.

«Before they start­ed the search, I asked, what they were look­ing for? But the chieo of local Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion depart­ment did not reply. The search war­rant also did not say what they were specif­i­cal­ly look­ing for. The search pro­to­col says they haven’t found any­thing in the office. They also haven’t found any­thing in the apart­ment, except for my lap­top that was tak­en away. But what are the grounds for that? What does my lap­top have to do with Hardzievich alleged­ly post­ing some­thing that some­one saw as an insult to the pres­i­dent? I dis­agree with the search and seizure of my lap­top, I think these actions are ille­gal,» —  Huza­yeus­ki said.

Accord­ing to the deci­sion of the inves­ti­ga­tor of Drahichyn police depart­ment Vilk­ous­ki and pros­e­cu­tor’s sanc­tion signed by pros­e­cu­tor Dzi­ashko under case №20122080257 against Siarhei Hardzieye­vich, the office of Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas news­pa­per and lat­er the apart­ment of its chief edi­tor Piotr Huza­yeus­ki were searched on 29 Decem­ber 2020.

Last week it was report­ed that Drahichyn reporter of 1reg.by Siarhei Hardziye­vich  was sent under house arrest (human rights defend­ers rec­og­nized him a polit­i­cal pris­on­er). On Decem­ber 24,  edi­tor of 1reg.by Pavel Daylid was sud­den­ly sum­moned for ques­tion­ing to Ivat­se­vichy police depart­ment, and some­one used his smart­phone that he had left in a lock­er at the police sta­tion. As a result, a group in Viber where Hardzievich had alleged­ly repost­ed an alleged insult was delet­ed from Daylid’s account.

This sum­mer, the Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas reporters record­ed a bru­tal crack­down on pro­test­ers by police. The police detained them for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the protest. Jour­nal­ist Alexan­der Paz­ni­ak was fined and cam­era­man Siarhei Bahrou was sen­tenced to 15 days in jail.

1reg.by is a pri­vate media out­let. It cov­ers a num­ber of cities in Brest region: Ivat­se­vichy, Biaroza, Pin­sk, Hantsavichy, and Drahichyn.

Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas news­pa­per is 19 years old. It is reg­is­tered by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion and belongs to Media Hantsavichy com­pa­ny, just as 1reg.by.