English

Prosecutor General`s Office issues warning to Radio Racyja journalist

The Prosecutor General’s Office on Thursday warned Barys Haretski, a journalist of Polish-based Radio Racyja, against working for the foreign station in Belarus without accreditation.

“This morning I came to the Prosecutor General’s Office for a questioning that lasted around 40 minutes,” Mr. Haretski told BelaPAN. “It was conducted by Counselor of Justice Pavel Yeliseyew who interrogated me about the circumstances of my arrest in front of the KGB headquarters on January 17. The official also asked me questions about my affiliation with Radio Racyja. As a result of the questioning, he issued me an official warning against working with the foreign media outlet without accreditation.”

Mr. Haretski said that he considered the warning illegal. “It violates my constitutional right to collect, distribute and store information as a citizen and as a journalist,” he said.

The journalist was arrested by an officer of the Committee for State Security (KGB) in front of the KGB main office 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.

The journalist spent the night in custody and was put on trial the following day. He 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.

Radio Racyja has applied twice to the Belarusian foreign ministry, asking it to grant accreditation to Mr. Haretski. Both applications were rejected.