RFE/RL Correspondent Seized By Masked Men In Minsk

No oth­er infor­ma­tion was imme­di­ate­ly avail­able fol­low­ing the Decem­ber 23 report from the Min­sk-based Vyas­na (Spring) rights group.

The report of Hruzdzilovich’s abduc­tion comes as Belarus’ Inte­ri­or Min­istry on Decem­ber 23 added RFE/RL’s Belaru­sian Ser­vice, known local­ly as Radio Svabo­da, to its reg­istry of extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

The action marks an inten­si­fi­ca­tion of a clam­p­down on inde­pen­dent media and civ­il soci­ety sparked by an upris­ing against author­i­tar­i­an ruler Alyak­san­dr Lukashenka’s claim that he won a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion last year that the oppo­si­tion says was rigged.

Hruzdzilovich and anoth­er RFE/RL cor­re­spon­dent, Ina Studzin­skaya, were released from jail in late July, 10 days after their arrest as part of Lukashenka’s clam­p­down on the media.

When they were released on July 26, Hruzdzilovich and Studzin­skaya said they were informed that they remain sus­pects in an unspec­i­fied crim­i­nal case.

Studzin­skaya had been on a hunger strike for nine days and Hruzdzilovich for three days to protest against their arrest. Anoth­er RFE/RL cor­re­spon­dent, Ales Dashchyn­s­ki, was released on July 23.

The three jour­nal­ists were arrest­ed among oth­er inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists on July 16 after police and secu­ri­ty forces searched their apart­ments and offices, includ­ing RFE/RL’s offices in Min­sk.

RFE/RL had con­demned the arrests of the jour­nal­ists as «the lat­est sear­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the des­per­a­tion of Alyak­san­dr Lukashen­ka.»

Belaru­sian author­i­ties have moved to shut down inde­pen­dent media out­lets and more than 50 non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions in the wake of mass protests after the dis­put­ed elec­tion. The oppo­si­tion and the West say Svy­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya won the vote and accuse Lukashen­ka of fal­si­fy­ing the result to give him a sixth con­sec­u­tive term in pow­er.

Mean­while, a jailed free­lance jour­nal­ist who has worked for RFE/RL’s Belarus Ser­vice is fac­ing unspec­i­fied crim­i­nal charges, his rel­a­tives told RFE/RL on Decem­ber 23.

Andrey Kuznechyk was not released from jail last week even though a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive jail term he was hand­ed on a con­tro­ver­sial hooli­gan­ism charge had end­ed.

His rel­a­tives told RFE/RL that they were offi­cial­ly informed that the jour­nal­ist will be trans­ferred from the noto­ri­ous Akrestsi­na deten­tion cen­ter, where many inmates have said they were tor­tured, to anoth­er deten­tion cen­ter in Min­sk as a crim­i­nal case on unspec­i­fied charges had been launched against him.

Kuznechyk was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to 10 days in jail on Novem­ber 26 after a tri­al in which he refused to accept the guilty ver­dict.