Belarusian Journalists Searched
Searches were made of the apartments of journalists who work for foreign media in several cities in Belarus yesterday. According to a spokesman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the searches were carried out by KGB agents acting on orders issued by the prosecutor's office. Searches occurred among employees of European Radio, Radio Racja, and Belsat television in Minsk, Gomel, Grodno, Vitebsk, Brest and Bobruisk. Computers and other equipment was confiscated.
The search orders were signed by deputy prosecutor of Minsk Alexey Stuk andmake reference to a criminal case involving cartoons caricaturing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the Internet that violated article 367 of the Criminal Code of Belarus (“Slandering the President,” punishable by up to five years' imprisonment). Zhanna Litvina, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, suggested that the real motivation for the searches were different. “Most likely, it is simply the authorities' revenge for objective coverage by journalists of the events in Minsk on March 25 [when a meeting of the opposition was broken up] and for truthful information about the situation in the country in general.”
The companies whose journalists were searched are all financed by the European Union. All three of the companies involved broadcast from Poland but maintain rather large staffs in Belarus. The Belarusian Interior Ministry declined to comment on the searches, although the police were used in some instances as well.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 28, 2008
|
