March 24: Our News Digest

Pho­to by Nasha Niva, Kas­trych­nit­skaya Square, March 24, 2017

BAJ Chair Meets PACE Rap­por­teur on Belarus

On March 24, the chair­per­son of BAJ Andrei Bas­tunets had a meet­ing with Andrei Rigo­ni, the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur of the Polit­i­cal Affairs Com­mit­tee of PACE. The Rap­por­teur has been informed about the ongo­ing wave of deten­tions and admin­is­tra­tive per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists.

OSCE/ODIHR Won’t Mon­i­tor Inde­pen­dence Day Action

OSCE/ODIHR informed Belaru­sian human rights defend­ers that it would not be able to agree on send­ing an obser­va­tion mis­sion to Belarus to mon­i­tor street events on March 25. It has been impos­si­ble to hold an offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion for unfold­ing an obser­va­tion mis­sion in such a short term.

Sev­er­al Peo­ple Fined for Face­book Posts about Protest Actions

A user of Face­book Andrei Maka­rau was sen­tenced to 7 days’ arrest for a post say­ing that “on March 25 it will be more dan­ger­ous to stay at home rather than to go to the street”. He was charged with arti­cle 23.34 – vio­lat­ing the pro­ce­dure for orga­niz­ing or hold­ing a mass event. He drew atten­tion that the post did not urge read­ers to come to an unsanc­tioned mass event. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee who observed the trail says that in his view the judge’s deci­sion had been pre­de­ter­mined. Two oth­er Face­book users were arrest­ed for 8 days. One per­son was fined for 375 BYN. Two more per­sons are await­ing tri­al under the same charge.

One State Chan­nel Gets a New Head

Share­hold­ers of ONT chan­nel backed the president’s sug­ges­tion to appoint Marat Markau a new chair­per­son of the Board of the chan­nel, reports BelTA. For 6 years, he used to be the deputy chair of the Belaru­sian TV and Radio Com­pa­ny and anchored the pro­gram Krup­nym Planom. Aged 48, hav­ing mil­i­tary and legal edu­ca­tion, he had also worked as the deputy head of the ide­o­log­i­cal depart­ment of the President’s Admin­is­tra­tion.

Web­site Edi­tor Sum­moned to Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee in Orsha

Edi­tor of the region­al web­site orsha.eu Ihar Kazmer­chak was sum­moned to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for tomor­row, March 25.

Three Jour­nal­ists Sum­moned to the Prosecutor’s Office and to Police in Homel

Three jour­nal­ists from Homel – Maria Bulavin­skaya, Siarhei Liapin and Yauhen Merkis were sum­moned today to the prosecutor’s office, and tomor­row – to the police depart­ment. Today, they have been warned against con­tri­bu­tion to for­eign mass media with­out accred­i­ta­tion (i.e. Bel­sat). The jour­nal­ists fear that tomor­row they will be sim­ply detained. Besides, yes­ter­day Yauhen Merkis was fined 30 b.a. for cov­er­ing an action from Raha­chou.

Jour­nal­ists Detained at the Pub­lic Sol­i­dar­i­ty Point

Ales Zaleus­ki, Bel­sat, Hal­li­na Abakunchyk (Radio Svabo­da), and two for­eign reporters (Kristi­na Ber­dyn­skikh (Novoye Vre­mya, Ukraine), and Gul­liv­er Cragg (France 24), were detained this evening togeth­er with some oth­er peo­ple, who were present at the spot of gath­er­ing first-need things for arrestees. Plain-clothed police­men appeared at the office of Green par­ty and start­ed to copy IDs of peo­ple who had come there. The jour­nal­ists were tak­en to near the police depart­ment of the Mask­ous­ki dis­trict, their doc­u­ments were ver­i­fied, now they are  free.

Joint State­ment of Human Rights Orga­ni­za­tions

Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions appealed to the gov­ern­ment of Belarus call­ing to stop esca­lat­ing the atmos­phere of hys­te­ria and fear; to release those arbi­trar­i­ly detained or arrest­ed for their exer­cise of their right to peace­ful assem­bly and free­dom of expres­sion; to ensure obser­vance of all pro­ce­dur­al guar­an­tees to those arrest­ed under crim­i­nal arti­cles; to ensure there is no pres­sure on all par­tic­i­pants of the crim­i­nal process, includ­ing lawyers; to ensure the cit­i­zens’ rights to peace­ful assem­bly and free­dom of expres­sion, to avoid vio­lence against cit­i­zens and to ensure unim­ped­ed work to jour­nal­ists.