Crackdown on independent journalists continues in Belarus

Andrej Kucharčyk, edi­tor in chief of the local news web­site Vir­tu­al Brest, has had crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings insti­tut­ed against him on a charge of insult­ing an offi­cial, an offense penal­ized under the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 369, Voĺha Čamadana­va, spokesper­son for the inte­ri­or min­istry, report­ed on Tues­day.

Accord­ing to Ms. Čamadana­va, the 48-year-old Kucharčyk cre­at­ed a chat on the Telegram mes­sag­ing app where he dis­trib­uted extrem­ist con­tent and post­ed insults tar­get­ing mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

In oth­er devel­op­ments, law enforce­ment offi­cers on Tues­day raid­ed the Min­sk apart­ment of TV pre­sen­ter Kacia­ry­na Pytlie­va, who is cur­rent­ly stay­ing abroad. Ms. Pytlie­va said in a Face­book post that the door to the apart­ment had been bro­ken down.

Jan­i­na Mieĺnika­va, edi­tor in chief of the envi­ron­men­tal news site greenbelarus.info, was sen­tenced Mon­day to a fine of 2,755 rubels (some $1,100) for alleged­ly dis­obey­ing police orders, report­ed the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ).

On Sep­tem­ber 3, Ms. Mieĺnika­va had her home searched and was lat­er tak­en to the Par­tyzan­s­ki dis­trict police sta­tion, where she was charged under the Civ­il Offens­es Code for alleged­ly refus­ing to leave a police car, wav­ing her arms and try­ing to escape from police offi­cers, the BAJ said. The jour­nal­ist was put in cus­tody and released after her tri­al on Sep­tem­ber 6.