Sixty-three searches conducted at journalists’ homes, newsrooms in less than two weeks

It said that a total of 107 raids tar­get­ing jour­nal­ists had been con­duct­ed by author­i­ties since the begin­ning of this year.

Thir­ty-three media work­ers are cur­rent­ly behind bars, said the BAJ.

A total of five jour­nal­ists — Alieh Hruzdzilovič, Alieś Daščyn­s­ki and Inesa Studzin­ska­ja of the Belaru­sian ser­vice of Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty and Ihar Iĺjaš and Han­na Halio­ta of Bel­sat TV — were arrest­ed on July 16.

The teams of two local online pub­li­ca­tions — ex-press.by in Barysaŭ, Min­sk region, and 6tv.by in Mahil­ioŭ — relo­cat­ed abroad last week to escape pos­si­ble per­se­cu­tion.

On July 16, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Belarus announced that it had infor­ma­tion that a num­ber of NGOs and media out­lets had been involved in the financ­ing of anti-gov­ern­ment protests in the coun­try.