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  • Security officials enter offices and flats of BAJ, human rights defenders and journalists

    Early in the morning of February 16th the press secretary of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Barys Haretski sent out the message that the security forces had come for him. Later, they also came to the BAJ’s lawyer Aleh Aheyeu and the chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Andrei Bastunets who was taken to witness the search in the office. In addition, searches of journalists and human rights activists in different cities are also being carried out. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not yet been able to provide a substantial comment.

    The picture is used as an illustration. Photo credit: Dzmitry Brushko, TUT.BY

     “Andrei Bas­tunets is being tak­en away by the police offi­cers of the Min­sk city exec­u­tive com­mit­tee. At least that’s how they intro­duced them­selves. The house is not searched, but Bas­tunets is tak­en away, as the search will be car­ried out in the BAJ office. The police behave polite­ly and urge not to wor­ry, ” Sabi­na Bry­lo, the wife of Bas­tunets, said. She does not know the rea­son for the search in BAJ’s office. The police offi­cers alleged­ly said that they would show all the nec­es­sary papers “when the time comes”. It was not pos­si­ble to con­tact Haret­s­ki and Aheyeu: Haret­ski’s phone is still work­ing, Aheyeu’s is not.

    The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists is a Belaru­sian non-gov­ern­men­tal pub­lic orga­ni­za­tion. It unites cit­i­zens engaged in pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ty or con­tribut­ing to its devel­op­ment. Found­ed in 1995, it under­went state re-reg­is­tra­tion in 2006. BAJ advo­cates for the rights of jour­nal­ists and defends prin­ci­ples of free and pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ism.

    Search­es in the flats of jour­nal­ists and human rights defend­ers

    As report­ed by the non-reg­is­tered Vias­na human rights cen­ter, on the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 16, riot police offi­cers came to the house of the Homiel free­lance jour­nal­ist Lar­isa Shchyrako­va . She is being searched as part of a crim­i­nal case under Art. 362 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus (mur­der of an employ­ee of the inter­nal affairs bod­ies). Anoth­er Homiel jour­nal­ist, Ana­toly Gotov­chits, is also being searched.

    The search­es were con­duct­ed at the mem­bers of the Mahilou branch of «Vias­na» Ali­ak­sei Kolchyn and Barys Buhel and Mahilou jour­nal­ist Ales Burak­ou Jr.

    In addi­tion, search­es were car­ried out at the offices of the heads of the Mazyr and Svet­la­horsk branch­es of the HRC “Vias­na” Uladz­imir Tseli­a­pun and  Ale­na Maslyuko­va.

    The search was car­ried out at the office of the coor­di­na­tor of the cam­paign «Human Rights Defend­ers Against the Death Penal­ty» Andrei Palu­da . His phone is off.

    “We will post all the infor­ma­tion on our depart­men­tal resources, but for now we are work­ing with this infor­ma­tion,” Vol­ha Chamadana­va, an offi­cial spokes­woman for the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs, said.

    Upd Search is under way at the apart­ment where the press sec­re­tary of Barys Zvozkau Belaru­sian Human Rights House Yauhe­nia Parashchanka is present with her young son.

    The Investigative Committee comments:

    The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee con­tin­ues to inves­ti­gate the crim­i­nal case under Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code of Belarus (Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that seri­ous­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them).

    As part of the pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion to estab­lish the cir­cum­stances of fund­ing the protest, the inves­ti­ga­tion bod­ies ini­ti­at­ed search­es of orga­ni­za­tions that posi­tion them­selves as human rights groups.

    Pro­ce­dur­al actions are car­ried out by the offi­cers of the Main Direc­torate for Com­bat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion (aka GUBOPiK, or GUBAZiK) of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs and autho­rized by the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office. The final legal assess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion will fol­low the com­ple­tion of all pro­ce­dur­al actions.

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