Naša Niva workers said to be in detention on suspicion of causing “damage without theft”

Accord­ing to Naša Niva, the fam­i­lies of Messrs. Mar­ci­novič and Skurko were not told to whom exact­ly they had caused the dam­age, while the fam­i­ly of Mr. Dyńko was informed that he had caused dam­age esti­mat­ed at 3,500 rubels (some $1,400) to Minen­er­ha (Min­sk pow­er util­i­ty) by pay­ing the rent at a rate for house­holds, where­as the rent should have been paid at a rate for legal enti­ties.

Messrs. Mar­ci­novič, Skurko and Dyńko and Chief Accoun­tant Voĺha Rakovič were arrest­ed on July 8 fol­low­ing search­es of their homes, Naša Niva’s edi­to­r­i­al office and its account­ing office.

Ini­tial­ly, they were said to be detained as sus­pects in pro­ceed­ings under Part One of the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 342, which penal­izes “prepa­ra­tions for actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order.”

Ms. Rakovič was released on her own recog­ni­zance on July 16.

Messrs. Mar­ci­novič, Skurko and Dyńko were not for­mal­ly charged with­in the first 10 days of their deten­tion. Instead, they were put in cus­tody for 72 hours as sus­pects in pro­ceed­ings under a dif­fer­ent Crim­i­nal Code arti­cle.