The Beaten Freelance Journalist to Be Put on Trial Again

The free­lance jour­nal­ist was observ­ing local elec­tions as a candidate’s autho­rized rep­re­sen­ta­tive and stream­ing dur­ing the count­ing of votes from a polling sta­tion in Min­sk on Feb­ru­ary 18, 2018.

The police offi­cers tried to expel the jour­nal­ist from the polling sta­tion by order of the Head of Local Elec­tion Com­mit­tee, accus­ing him of legal abuse.

It should be men­tioned in this respect that the Elec­tion Code of Belarus doesn’t ban video record­ing of vote count­ing pro­ce­dure.

As soon as Andrus Koziel refused to leave the polling sta­tion, the police offi­cers kicked the jour­nal­ist away by force.

Accord­ing to the free­lance jour­nal­ist’ evi­dence, he was beat­en black and blue by the police rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Also, report­ed­ly, the police offi­cers broke a glass door at the polling sta­tion premis­es with the journalist’s head.

Con­se­quent­ly, the offi­cers blamed the jour­nal­ist for ‘dis­obe­di­ence to the police’.

The judge Ivan Kast­sian returned the police report for revi­sion to the claimants and released the jour­nal­ist from cus­tody dur­ing a court ses­sion on Feb­ru­ary 19, 2018.

The re-tri­al ses­sion at the Cen­tral City Dis­trict Court of Min­sk (21, Kirau Str.) has been sched­uled for March 7, 2018.