Police detains 3 journalists in Mahiliou region. Laptsevich goes on hunger strike. Burakou Sr. and Burakou Jr. sentenced to 10 days of jail

Traf­fic police stopped car Alexan­der’s Burak­ou at about 7.00 p.m.  They used a flim­sy excuse to take Burak­ou to Lenin­s­ki dis­trict police depart­ment.

Burak­ou was detained on his way to Mahil­iou region stu­dio where he was sup­posed to record a video ded­i­cat­ed to the course of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus. .

Mahil­iou jour­nal­ists and human rights activists came to the police sta­tion to sup­port Burak­ou, but they were not allowed to enter the police sta­tion build­ing, due to the «dif­fi­cult epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.»

BAJ mem­ber, Mahil­iou region jour­nal­ist Uladz­imir Lapt­se­vich filed a com­plaint against the actions of the Lenin­sky dis­trict police depart­ment.

After a while, Lapt­se­vich was approached by a police offi­cer who asked the jour­nal­ist to come to the police sta­tion for an inter­view about the com­plaint. Lapt­se­vich’s col­leagues waied for him out­side, but to no avail. He did not answer calls or text mes­sages.

In the morn­ing they were informed, Lapt­se­vich was detained and tak­en to the deten­tion cen­ter for alleged insub­or­di­na­tion to police.

Free­lance jour­nal­ists Ali­na Skrabuno­va and Alexan­der Sidareus­ki who were wait­ing near the Lenin­sky dis­trict police depart­ment, were hand­ed in sum­mons to appear at Kas­trych­nit­s­ki dis­trict police sta­tion on 6 August at 3:00 p.m.

On the night of August 6 human right defend­er Barys Bukhel report­ed a provo­ca­tion against Alexan­der Burak­ou that took place right in front of the police sta­tion. 

- I was stand­ing at main entrance to the police sta­tion, wait­ing for the sit­u­a­tion to devel­op. Sud­den­ly I heard a noise from the entrance gate to the park­ing lot. First I hear a woman whin­ing, then — the voice of Ales Burak­ou, who loud­ly repeat­ed sev­er­al times «this is a provo­ca­tion.» I rushed to them, but both the woman and Burak­ou were tak­en back to the police sta­tion. Dur­ing the scene two police offi­cers in plain clothes were present, Barys Bukhel told human rights por­tal mspring.online.

As he explained, the police had noth­ing to charge Burak­ou with, and it looked like they decid­ed to orga­nize a provo­ca­tion.

- They took him out of the police sta­tion not through the main entrance, but through the door to the park­ing lot.  And they did it when I was alone wait­ing out­side, all col­leagues had already left. I believe they will try to charge him with attack­ing a woman, although I am a wit­ness who saw that it was a provo­ca­tion.

Ales Burak­ou Sr. was charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct and sen­tenced to 10 days of jail.

Mean­while, police offi­cers in plain clothes detained jour­nal­ist Ales Burak­ou Jr. who was await­ing tri­al over Burak­ou Sr. BAJ lawyer Aleh Aheyeu who came to court to sup­port the jour­nal­ist, observed the deten­tion.

Lat­er Burak­ou Jr. was found in the deten­tion cen­ter. On Fri­day, he was sen­tenced to 10 days of jail for vio­la­tion of the reg­u­la­tions of mass actions. 

Uladz­imir Lapte­se­vich, detained for a com­plaint, went on a hunger strike. He says the police hit his head against the floor and threat­ened him with fur­ther beat­ing. His tri­al is still under way.