RSF: Dozens of journalists arrested during protests in Belarus

RSF regards the police arrests and the jail terms as major vio­la­tions of media free­dom.

Two blog­gers, Syarhei Pya­trukhin and Dzmit­ry Har­bunou (of Nar­o­d­ny Repart­sy­or), were sen­tenced to 15 days in prison in the west­ern city of Brest today for alleged­ly tak­ing part in an “unau­tho­rized demon­stra­tion.” Pya­trukhin was tried in absen­tia but Har­bunou attend­ed the hear­ing and was detained imme­di­ate­ly after­wards.

Vik­tar Andreyeu of Orshatut.by, a local news web­site in the east­ern city of Orsha, and Mak­sim Fil­ipovich, a blog­ger in the south­east­ern city of Homyel, were sen­tenced to 13 days in prison
yes­ter­day on the same charge.

Two oth­er Orsha-based jour­nal­ists, Hali­na Abakunchyk of RFE/RL and Kat­syary­na Bakhvala­va of Bel­sat TV, were fined 575 rubles (283 euros) and 690 rubles (340 euros) respec­tive­ly yes­ter­day after being held overnight in police cus­tody.

“The Belaru­sian author­i­ties must put an imme­di­ate stop to this tar­get­ed and coor­di­nat­ed harass­ment,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia desk.

“Jour­nal­ists have a right to cov­er events of gen­er­al inter­est, regard­less of their nature. We urge the Euro­pean Union to issue a firm reminder that mas­sive media free­dom vio­la­tions of this kind are incom­pat­i­ble with the con­tin­u­a­tion of a rap­proche­ment between Min­sk and Brus­sels.”

Many jour­nal­ists were arrest­ed before they could begin to cov­er the protests. They includ­ed Syarhei Serabro, Tat­syana Matsveye­va, Ihar Matsveyeu, Adaryya Hur­shtyn and Syarhei Hudzilin, who were arrest­ed on their arrival at Orsha sta­tion on 12 March and were held for so long that they missed all or most of the demon­stra­tion in Orsha.

Syarhei Ruset­s­ki , Uladz­imir Lun­y­ou, Yauhen Meriks, Syarhei Kava­ly­ou, Vol­ha Chay­chyts and Andrei Kozel were stopped by traf­fic police while on their way to cov­er a demon­stra­tion in Raha­chou, near Homyel, on 12 March.

Unusu­al­ly large demon­stra­tions have been tak­ing place in Belarus since late Feb­ru­ary in protest against a new tax on “social par­a­sitism” applic­a­ble to any­one work­ing for less than six months a year.

Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko sus­pend­ed the tax on 9 March but ordered the inte­ri­or min­istry to take “extreme­ly severe mea­sures” against the protests’ “insti­ga­tors” and to restore “per­fect order.” The police began at once to dis­perse the protests with much more ener­gy and at least 70 arrests have so far been made.

Belarus is ranked 157th out of 180 coun­tries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Free­dom Index.

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