Another raid on relatives of ex-Belsat journalist Siarhei Skulavets

Police searched the home of Siarhei Skulavet­s’s 85-year-old grand­moth­er. Skulavets is a for­mer jour­nal­ist at Bel­sat TV. In Sep­tem­ber, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee had opened a crim­i­nal case against him.

Siarhei Skulavets. Pho­to: Siarhei’s Face­book page

Siarhei Skulavets post­ed on Face­book on Novem­ber 30 about anoth­er search of his rel­a­tives’ home. This time, they came to search the home of his 85-year-old grand­moth­er, who lives in the vil­lage of Horsk, Stolin dis­trict.

Siarhei now lives in the Unit­ed States. He left Belarus in the sum­mer of 2023, wor­ried about being per­se­cut­ed for his pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties.

Accord­ing to his post, the nature of the accu­sa­tions and the rea­son for the search are unknown. How­ev­er, the jour­nal­ist’s iden­ti­ty was of inter­est to peo­ple who called them­selves inves­ti­ga­tors and KGB offi­cers. The law enforcers did not want to reveal what depart­ment they worked for.

“They checked the cell phones, asked some ques­tions, wrote some­thing down. My father said that there are no things of mine in this house, but they didn’t seem to care about that,” says Siarhei Skulavets.

Fur­ther­more, the jour­nal­ist reports that his rel­a­tives have recent­ly been receiv­ing phone calls from indi­vid­u­als claim­ing to be Depart­ment of Finan­cial Secu­ri­ty employ­ees.

“They inquire about my where­abouts and claim they can­not reach me,» states Siarhei Skulavets. He clar­i­fies that he does not con­ceal his where­abouts, that he is acces­si­ble via social media, and that his con­tact infor­ma­tion is list­ed on these plat­forms.

Siarhei Skulavets, 43, a res­i­dent of Ivat­se­vichy, was employed as a farmer. Con­cur­rent­ly, he col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel. In June 2023, he was informed that anoth­er raid on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists was immi­nent. Con­se­quent­ly, Skulavets depart­ed Belarus with his fam­i­ly.

In Sep­tem­ber of this year, it became known that the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee had ini­ti­at­ed a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into Skulavets. This was fol­lowed by search­es of his res­i­dence and that of his moth­er.