Photogphers get 11 days of jail. They covered the protests, while the court ruled they were protesters

They were grabbed by riot police on Sep­tem­ber 13, after 9 p.m., in cafe where they were send­ing their pho­tos back to the news­rooms. At first, the jour­nal­ists were accused of ral­ly­ing on the street just out­side the cafe. How­ev­er, when the court watched the video it became appar­ent that they were work­ing there. Then the police “revised” their reports. This time, they claimed Hry­dzin and Vasukovich ral­lied near Pushkin­skaya metro sta­tion, two hours before deten­tion (a few kilo­me­ters away from the for­mer “crime scene”).

 Alexan­der Vasukovich did not plead guilty. He said he was cov­er­ing a protest action. On Sep­tem­ber 13, anoth­er TUT.BY pho­tog­ra­ph­er — Vol­ha Shukaila — worked in the area. She wit­nessed in court that she saw Vasukovich work­ing: he was clear­ly marked as a jour­nal­ist, as it is required by the law “On mass events”, and had a press card around his neck.

— He was cov­er­ing the protest, we worked near­by, — the wit­ness says. — I saw Vasukovich well, he did­n’t shout any­thing, and had no protest sym­bols on him.

Vol­ha explained that jour­nal­ists even try not to talk to pro­test­ers while work­ing, so that it would­n’t be treat­ed as “protest coor­di­na­tion” after­words. In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, six jour­nal­ists were detained while cov­er­ing the protests, accused of “coor­di­nat­ing an ille­gal march”, and sen­tenced to three days of jail.

Sim­i­lar charges appear in the case against Uladz Hry­dzinwho also explained in court that he was tak­ing pic­tures for the pho­to report that he lat­er sent to the news­room.

The court sen­tenced both pho­tog­ra­phers to 11 days of jail.

This is not the first time when jour­nal­ists of reg­is­tered media have been pun­ished for doing their job under the guise of alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rized ral­lies. In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, six reporters (Bela­PAN, TUT.BY, Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus) were detained while cov­er­ing the stu­dent march, rec­og­nized as “coor­di­na­tors” of protest and giv­en three days of jail each.