Journalists Accused of Participation in an Unsanctioned Protest Action (Upd)

The action took place from 6 to 7 pm, from the cen­tral store GUM to Inde­pen­dence Square. Rights at the square, the police drew up reports for par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unsanc­tioned mass event against some par­tic­i­pants and against three jour­nal­ists – Hali­na Abakunchyk (Radio Svabo­da), Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Nar­o­d­naya Volya news­pa­per) and Dzmit­ry Halko (Novy Chas newspaper).All the jour­nal­ists pre­sent­ed their press cre­den­tials, but the police ignored it. Nobody was detained, but the jour­nal­ists were informed they would be sum­moned to court for vio­la­tion of admin­is­tra­tive arti­cle 23.34 (par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unsanc­tioned mass event). The penal­ty envis­ages a fine of up to 40 basic amounts or an admin­is­tra­tive arrest.

The next day, how­ev­er, the police press ser­vice said that the reports against the jour­nal­ists had not been com­piled. «The employ­ees said they start­ed to write the report, but then under­stood that these were jour­nal­ists, and stopped it.»