Charges pressed against Press Club Belarus leaders

“The attor­neys filed a motion for com­pen­sa­tion for the loss­es by the fam­i­lies. But to no avail”, — Yulia Slut­saya’s daugh­ter Alexan­dra post­ed on Face­book.

Yulia Slut­skaya will remain in cus­tody until 22 Feb­ru­ary.

Alexan­dra explained, today attor­neys were invit­ed to vis­it the Press Club mem­bers. How­ev­er, they can not dis­close any infor­ma­tion about the case. Only Yulia Slut­skaya’s attor­ney dis­closed the fact that charges had been pressed against her.

How­ev­er, as noone of Press Club mem­bers were released from cus­tody today, we believe the charges had been pressed against the oth­er five peo­ple.

Press Club Pro­gram Direc­tor Alla Sharko remains in cus­tody,  report­ed her hus­band Miko­la Shakel.

“The attor­neys signed a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment. There­fore, I can’t tell you any­thing else,” — Shakel said.

On Decem­ber 22, the office and the homes of the Press Club staff were searched. Its founder Yulia Slut­skaya was detained upon arriv­el in the Nation­al Air­port. Her home was also searched.

The fol­low­ing peo­ple have been arrest­ed:

Press Club Belarus founder Yulia Slut­skaya
 its Pro­gram Direc­tor Alla Sharko
 Its Direc­tor Siarhei Alsheus­ki
 Acad­e­my Press Club Direc­tor Siarhei Yaku­pau
 Press Club staff mem­ber and Yuli­a’s son Piotr Slut­s­ki
 For­mer jour­nal­ist of the Belaru­sian TV and Radio Com­pa­ny Kse­nia Lut­ski­na.

Yulia Slut­skaya — founder and chair of  Press Club Belarus. She’s been involved in jour­nal­ism since 1994. She grad­u­at­ed from the Phi­los­o­phy Fac­ul­ty of the Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty, and worked as a soci­ol­o­gist before join­ing the media sphere. In 1995–2006 Yulia served as the chief edi­tor of “Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus”. In 2007–2010 she led the Euro­pean Radio for Belarus, and in 2011 she found­ed and led Belarus in Focus Infor­ma­tion Office in War­saw.

Press Club Belarus was found­ed in 2011. In June 2014, the orga­ni­za­tion became a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Press Clubs. In Novem­ber 2015„ a cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion “Press Club Jour­nal­ism Work­shops” was reg­is­tered in Belarus.

Press Club Belarus orga­nizes pro­fes­sion­al debates, work­shops and edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams for jour­nal­ists, and research­es the con­tent of the Belaru­sian media, includ­ing the state ones.