Journalists demonstrate; police make new arrests

A group of about 80 jour­nal­ists organ­ised a demon­stra­tion on Thurs­day in front of the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or in Min­sk. They were protest­ing against the con­tin­ued deten­tion of six jour­nal­ists who were arrest­ed on 1 Sep­tem­ber in Min­sk: Nadezh­da Kalin­i­na (TUT.BY), Alex­ei Sud­nikov (TUT.BY), Andrei Shev­lyu­ga (Bela­PAN), Maria Elya­she­vich (Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da), Svy­atoslav Zor­ki (Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da), Niki­ta Nedoverkov (Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da).

The cas­es of these six detained jour­nal­ists were sent for revi­sion. The jour­nal­ists were left in soli­tary con­fine­ment.

After organ­is­ing a pick­et near the build­ing of the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or, the jour­nal­ists formed a chain on Ramanauskaya Slo­bo­da Street. Then they went to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion.

Two oth­er jour­nal­ists were arrest­ed on Thurs­day:

• Dzmit­ry Brushko (TUT.BY), who was accused of hooli­gan­ism, in Min­sk before being released.

• Larysa Shchyrako­va (free­lancer), who has been tak­en to Homiel pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter. The author­i­ties accused her of alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rized protest actions.

“Fol­low­ing the mass arrests of jour­nal­ists, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties are step­ping up the pres­sure by pros­e­cut­ing these jour­nal­ists for alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in, or even coor­di­na­tion of, ille­gal demon­stra­tions,” said EFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ricar­do Gutiér­rez. “We call on the Euro­pean Union and the OSCE to inter­vene urgent­ly to put an end to this relent­less pres­sure, which is just aimed at build­ing a wall of silence over Belarus.”