Police search office of BelaPAN news agency

Bela­PAN direc­tor Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau explained:

- Dur­ing the three-hour search the police seized some records, doc­u­ments, ten hard dri­ves from com­put­ers and two hard dri­ves from a local serv­er. The work of the news­room is par­a­lyzed. We will restore every­thing, but it will take time.

Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau said that the search war­rant referred to arti­cles 342 and 293 of the Crim­i­nal Code. He does­n’t know whether arti­cle 293 has any­thing to do with the case against jour­nal­ist Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau.

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau is a con­tract­ed jour­nal­ist for Bela­PAN, i.e., not a staff mem­ber. In 2015–2018, he was Bela­PAN’s Deputy Direc­tor.

Bela­PAN jour­nal­ist Tat­siana Bub­lika­va was present in the office in the begin­ning of the search. She post­ed a video on her Face­book page where she explained that the police came at 12:10.

Tat­siana felt sick, and and ambu­lance took her to hos­pi­tal with hyper­ten­sion. She was able to get her smart­phone out of the office.

Lawyer Sergei Zikratsky has arrived at the agency’s office to pro­vides legal ser­vices. How­ev­er, he was not allowed inside, under the pre­text that the search had already begun. 

Yes­ter­day the police detained jour­nal­ist Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau. He was detained as a sus­pect in a crim­i­nal case insti­tut­ed by Min­sk Depart­ment of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee,  his lawyer said. She did not give the details as she signed a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

Lat­er we learned that Ali­ak­san­drau is a sus­pect under arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code «Orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing activ­i­ties that breach pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them.» His girl­friend is detained as a sus­pect in the case, too.

Bela­PAN is the old­est non-gov­ern­men­tal inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian news agency. It was found­ed in 1991 by Ales Lipay. On 13 Jan­u­ary, jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er Andrei Alexan­drov was detained as a sus­pect for “Orga­ni­za­tion of group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them.” His girl­friend Iri­na Zlobi­na was also detained, she is a sus­pect in a crim­i­nal case too.