Police Interfere with Journalists Work at Regional Protest Actions

In Orsha, the police stopped the car of Bel­sat jour­nal­ists. An admin­is­tra­tive report was drawn up against cam­era­man Ali­ak­san­dr Barasen­ka. The team drove to a police depart­ment with the aim to take a com­ment from a detained activist Pavel Seviarynets. As a result, the police detained Ali­ak­san­dr Barasen­ka and jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va dur­ing live stream. Ali­ak­san­dr Barasen­ka was fined 23 basic amounts for his car had been stand­ing in the traf­fic area.

After the protest action, jour­nal­ist of the Radio Svabo­da Hali­na Abakunchyk was detained, as well as Bela­PAN pho­tog­ra­ph­er Andrei Shauli­uha and blog­ger Anas­ta­sia Pil­i­uhi­na. Hali­na Abakunchyk and Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va had admin­is­tra­tive reports com­piled against them for dis­obe­di­ence to police’s demand. The tri­al is going to be tomor­row, they will spend the night in the deten­tion facil­i­ty.

In the Homel region, jour­nal­ists were detained on their way to Raha­chou – jour­nal­ists of Bel­sat Yauhen Merkis, Siarhei Kavaliou, Vol­ha Chay­chyts and Andrei Kozel. The traf­fic police stopped two cars and start­ed a long inspec­tion of tech­ni­cal doc­u­ments.

In Viteb­sk jour­nal­ists Siarhei Ruset­s­ki and Uladz­imir Luniou were detained by traf­fic police; they were tak­en to a police depart­ment to check if the car had not been jacked. Lat­er, the police brought their excus­es and let them go.

In Brest, the local blog­ger Siarhei Pia­trukhin was detained, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him for the moment of the report was lost.

Also, search­es and doc­u­ments’ check-ups were under­tak­en in Orsha to pre­vent local activists and jour­nal­ists from join­ing the action.

The police searched hous­es of the activist Kanstantsin Antanashke­vich and of the jour­nal­ist of the Belaru­sian Radio Racy­ja Art­siom Siz­intsau. At the house of the lat­ter, the police were look­ing for false paper mon­ey. 

The chair­per­son of the city branch of the UCP par­ty Valiantsi­na Ihnat­sen­ka was forced to stay at home, plain-clothed per­sons were on guard knock­ing on her doors since 9 am. 

The police car was also on duty near the house of Ihar Kazmer­chak, edi­tor of the region­al web­site orsha.eu.

The activist Ihar Hryshanau was detained at a car fuel sta­tion and tak­en to a police depart­ment.

Mean­while, jour­nal­ist of Bela­PAN Adar­ja Hushtyn and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Siarhei Hudzilin were detained for “doc­u­ment check” at the rail­way sta­tion in Orsha. They were set free only at 2 pm, when the action was over.

The same way, the edi­tor of the region­al web­site of Viteb­sk Siarzhuk Serabro was detained. Jour­nal­ists of tut.by Tat­siana and Ihar matveyevy had their doc­u­ments checked. They were set free 10 min­utes before 1 pm, the start­ing time of the action.

A jour­nal­ist of Nar­o­d­naya Volya had her doc­u­ments checked in the train on her way to Orsha.