Four TV Crews Detained on Saturday

In Barysau, jour­nal­ists Vol­ha Cza­y­chyts and Siarhei Kavaliou were detained dur­ing live stream in town cen­ter and tak­en to Barysau police depart­ment. The detainees were not informed why they had been detained; the police car had no dis­tin­guish­ing signs. The jour­nal­ists came to report a pos­si­ble protest action announced by anar­chist activists through­out the coun­try.

On the way from Navap­o­latsk to Viteb­sk, jour­nal­ists Siarhei Ruset­s­ki, Uladz­imir Luniou and Ale­na Stsi­a­pana­va were detained in a car. They were accused of vio­lat­ing the traf­fic rules, lat­er set free. Then they were again detained in Polatsk dis­trict and tak­en to a police depart­ment to ver­i­fy if their car num­bers had not been changed ille­gal­ly. After some pro­ce­dures and expla­na­tions, they were set free.In Homel region, Larysa Shchyrako­va was detained under accu­sa­tions of alleged theft. She was detained in Rechyt­sa when she was head­ing for Mazyr.

The police act­ed accord­ing to a descrip­tion of a sus­pect close­ly resem­bling the jour­nal­ist.

Also, the traf­fic police stopped the inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist Kas­tus Zhuk­ous­ki who was also mov­ing the same way.

In Kobryn, Brest region, jour­nal­ists Ales Liauchuk and Milana Khary­ton­a­va were detained after cov­er­ing a protest action in the town. Around 25 activists gath­ered in town cen­ter, and after see­ing them off to their cars, the jour­nal­ists were detained. The jour­nal­ists say they had been detained bru­tal­ly, beat­en and threat­ened, held for over three hours.

On Mon­day, March 20, at noon, there will be a press con­fer­ence at BAJ Min­sk office, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Bel­sat chan­nel Ali­ak­sei Min­chonak.