Journalists and media searched and detained all over country

Vitebsk region

Zmitser Kaza­ke­vich, head of BAJ-Viteb­sk, was not at home, when his home was raid­ed. He is recount­ing the events as his wife told him:

— Per­shamais­ki police depart­ment searched my place as part of the crim­i­nal case under Arti­cle 188 of the Crim­i­nal Code (defama­tion). The case is opened in rela­tion to an iden­ti­fied per­son who alleged­ly slan­dered a Lep­el police offi­cer Mikhno. And sup­pos­ed­ly I could have the infor­ma­tion about that per­son. Of course, I don’t have any infor­ma­tion about this, and I have nev­er heard of a police offi­cer with such a name.

The search of Zmitser Kaza­ke­vich’s apart­ment last­ed for three hours. The police­men took his and his wife’s and daugh­ter’s lap­tops, two old black box­es, two cam­eras, and a small white-red-white flag.

This is not the first time when the police seize Kaza­ke­vich’s equip­ment.  He was repeat­ed­ly detained for cov­er­age of the peace­ful protests in Viteb­sk, pun­ished with short-term arrests for alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rized mass events and with fines for coop­er­a­tion with Bel­sat. 

In Viteb­sk, the police detained free­lance jour­nal­ist Vital Skryl, his wife Ali­na told the human rights defend­ers.  She says, Skryl left the house with­out a phone, and in some time he called her from an unknown num­ber.

The con­ver­sa­tion was brief: Vital just had time to tell her he had been detained under Art. 369 of the Crim­i­nal Code (insult­ing a gov­ern­ment offi­cial). At the moment, the jour­nal­ist has the sta­tus of a sus­pect in the case. He was inter­ro­gat­ed and detained for 72 hours.

Hly­bokaye jour­nal­ist Zmitser Lupach was detained at a Plisa resort, where he was on vaca­tion.  The jour­nal­ist’s wife told BAJ that the police had also come to his home.

The police also searched the home of an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist Viachaslau Laza­rau in Viteb­sk. The police­men looked for his in his moth­er’s apart­ment where he is reg­is­tered. They did­n’t find Viachaslau but seized his moth­er’s phone: to exam­ine it for infor­ma­tion about the crimes, that her son might be involved in.

In Orsha, Ihar Kazmi­ar­chak, a human rights activist and edi­tor of orsha.eu was detained.

As his fam­i­ly and friends found out, the founder of an inde­pen­dent Orsha web­site orsha.eu had been ques­tioned about dam­age to urban spaces with polit­i­cal slo­gans. The police start­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion under Arti­cle 341of the Crim­i­nal Code It is unknown what urban spaces they meant.

Kazmi­ar­chak has been detained for 72 hours.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, police searched the home of Dzia­n­is Dubkou, pho­tog­ra­ph­er of orsha.eu. He was inter­ro­gat­ed and released in a few hours. He does­n’t say what he was ques­tioned about refer­ring to a non-dis­clo­sure pledge he had to sign.

Mahiliou region

The police raid­ed the apart­ment of jour­nal­ist Ale­sia Latsin­skaya (Babruisk). She works with the local media bobr.by. After the search, she was tak­en to the local KGB.

After a talk with the KGB offi­cers and sign­ing a non-dis­clo­sure pledge, she was released. Ale­sia says she can’t say any­thing, if there is any crim­i­nal case, and if she has any sta­tus in it.

Brest region

Yes­ter­day, the secu­ri­ty forces came to the offices of two inde­pen­dent media in the Brest oblast — to Brest­skaya Gaze­ta and Intex-Press.

The search at Inteks-Press took place as part of the inves­ti­ga­tion of a crim­i­nal case under part 2 of arti­cle 289 of the Crim­i­nal Code (an act of ter­ror­ism com­mit­ted repeat­ed­ly or by a group of per­sons by pri­or con­spir­a­cy) Search­es took place in the edi­to­r­i­al offices and at the employ­ees’ homes. The police seized the equip­ment.