English

Radio Racyja journalist summoned by police

Journalist Mikalay Byanko, who works with Polish-based Radio Racyja, has been summoned to Minsk’s Frunzenski district police department.

“I received a call on my mobile phone at 6:00 p.m. from a stranger who introduced himself as Yawhen Khanen, a police officer, and invited me to the district police station,” Mr. Byanko told BelaPAN on Tuesday. “He did not say whether they wanted to interrogate me or just have a `talk.` I asked him to send a written summons that will specify the investigation in which I am targeted and my status.”

Mr. Byanko expressed concern that the authorities seemed to be determined to continue their “large-scale campaign of intimidation against independent journalists and people who want to be active citizens.” “The authorities are putting barriers to the fulfillment of our professional duties,” he said. “They don’t want us to cover events that they don’t like. They want us to be still as mice. Only the man who has started this wave of interrogations and searches knows when they will end.”

On Monday, Mr. Byanko’s fellow worker, Barys Haretski, was sentenced by a district court in Minsk to 14 days in jail on a charge of participating in the December 19 post-election demonstration in the Belarusian capital city.

Judge Yawhen Khatkevich of Minsk’s Maskowski District Court acknowledged that Mr. Haretski, indeed, might have been in Independence Square to cover the protest on the instructions of his editorial staff, but he noted that the journalist`s assignment did not rule out his participation in the demonstration.

The journalist was arrested by an officer of the Committee for State Security (KGB) in front of the KGB main office on Monday as he was recording an interview with relatives of those held in the KGB detention center in connection with the December 19 demonstration.

Mr. Haretski was told by the officer that the KGB wanted to have a “prophylactic conversation” with him. //BelaPAN