Belarus: criminal complaint against obstruction of journalists’ work

The legal action is launched on the basis of arti­cle 198 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus (“Obstruc­tion of the legit­i­mate pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties of a jour­nal­ist”). BAJ asked the chair­man of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Repub­lic of Belarus to ini­ti­ate a crim­i­nal case into the events of 27 August, when at least 47 jour­nal­ists were detained in order to pre­vent them from cov­er­ing the mas­sive demon­stra­tions against elec­toral fraud and police vio­lence in Min­sk and Brest.

Most of the detainees were tak­en to the Oktyabrskiy dis­trict police depart­ment of Min­sk. Police offi­cers ran­dom­ly destroyed the images tak­en by the jour­nal­ists. They also threat­ened to dam­age or destroy jour­nal­ists’ pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment.

“Such arbi­trary deten­tions and threats con­sti­tute an obsta­cle to the legit­i­mate pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties of jour­nal­ists,” said EFJ Direc­tor Renate Schroed­er. BAJ alleges not only a vio­la­tion of the crim­i­nal code by law enforce­ment offi­cials, but also a vio­la­tion of the Belaru­sian Media Law and the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights.

The EFJ joins BAJ in its demand:

• the ini­ti­a­tion of legal pro­ceed­ings on the basis of Arti­cle 198 of the Crim­i­nal Code;

• the sus­pen­sion from duty of those alleged­ly obstruct­ing the work of jour­nal­ists on the basis of Arti­cle 131 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Code;

• to pro­vide max­i­mum infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic about the progress of the inves­ti­ga­tion of this crim­i­nal case.

“We call again on the Euro­pean Union, the Coun­cil of Europe and the OSCE to take action,” said EFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ricar­do Gutiér­rez. “The EFJ joined the call yes­ter­day by the Euro­pean Trade Union Con­fed­er­a­tion (ETUC) to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for an urgent res­o­lu­tion call­ing for re-run of the elec­tion with an inde­pen­dent elec­tion com­mis­sion and inter­na­tion­al observers.”

the Euro­pean trade union move­ment urges the Euro­pean Union to assess the Belaru­sian government’s actions and review the EU rela­tions with Belarus. “This includes the rein­tro­duc­tion of com­men­su­rate sanc­tions for elec­toral fraud and vio­lence as well as recon­sid­er­ing coop­er­a­tion with the coun­try, includ­ing with­in the East­ern Part­ner­ship. Strength­en­ing sup­port to Belaru­sian civ­il soci­ety – includ­ing inde­pen­dent unions – and stop­ping any EU finan­cial sup­port to the gov­ern­ment and state-con­trolled projects – includ­ing through mul­ti­lat­er­al devel­op­ment banks – must also be urgent­ly addressed.”

The ETUC calls on the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to adopt a Res­o­lu­tion includ­ing the above men­tioned demands and mea­sures dur­ing the Sep­tem­ber Ple­nary ses­sion.