OSCE Media Freedom Representative deplores detention of journalists in Belarus

Today, accord­ing to reports Lyubov Kasper­ovich, a jour­nal­ist with Tut.by news por­tal, was placed for 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized event”. She was detained on 14 May while cov­er­ing a tri­al against a group of peo­ple.

On 15 May, jour­nal­ists Alexan­der Burakov, a free­lance reporter for Ger­man broad­cast­er Deutsche Welle, and Vladimir Lapt­se­vich, a jour­nal­ist with local online news por­tal Mogilev Region (6tv.by), accord­ing to reports were placed for 20 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for “repeat­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized event”. Both jour­nal­ists were detained on 12 May out­side a cour­t­house in the east­ern city of Mogilev while report­ing on the tri­al of oppo­si­tion activists.

On 14 May, free­lance pho­to­jour­nal­ist Tatyana Kapitono­va was placed for ten days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized event.” She was appre­hend­ed the day before, in Min­sk, alleged­ly for report­ing on a flower-lay­ing event.

The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive reit­er­at­ed her call to the author­i­ties to reverse the neg­a­tive trend and bring their poli­cies and prac­tices in com­pli­ance with their OSCE com­mit­ments.

“The way the author­i­ties in Belarus treat media work­ers remains deeply dis­turb­ing and, along with oth­er wor­ry­ing devel­op­ments regard­ing media free­dom in the coun­try in recent months, it seri­ous­ly jeop­ar­dizes the fun­da­men­tal human right to free­dom of expres­sion,” Ribeiro said. “I call on the author­i­ties to stop harass­ing jour­nal­ists and release all those impris­oned.”