Searches at journalists’ places continue

Searches in apartments of independent journalists continue in Mahilyou region on March 28.

According to the monitoring service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, KGB officers in Horki have just finished a search in the apartment of the editor-in-chief of a small independent newspaper “Uzhorak” and “Vybar”, a member of the BAJ Eduard Brokarau. A search has also been held in the apartment of an independent journalist Ihar Simbirau in Asipovichy.

A system block of the computer and copies of an independent newspaper were seized from E. Brokarau by law enforcers. To the question of the jourbalist when the seized things would be returned to him, the answer was “Examination is to take place in 3 months”.

All copies of independent newspapers were seized from the apartment of I. Simbirau “for expert examination of the contents”.

As we have informed, searches in apartments of journalists of European Radio, Radio Racyja and TV channel Belsat were held yesterday all over the country.

The searches are held on the grounds of an order of a deputy prosecutor of Minsk A. Stuk to the first deputy KGB chairman, Major General V. Vyahera. Names of 17 journalists were listed in the order. Our correspondent copied them. They are: Melnikau, Hatouchyts, Barscheuski, Stsyapanau, Sudnik, Varabyou, Karpenka, Arshansky, Vasilkou, Brokarau, Shobin, Chukhno, Dekh, Bely, Schapyotkina, Alyaksandrau. It was written in the document that “searches are to be held also in the apartments of other radical politicized groupings”.

It follows from the request that in this way KGB men are taking measures in order to prevent dissemination of deliberately false information on the leader of the state. The matter concerns demonstration of a cartoon which had been allegedly demonstrated at Belsat channel.

It is most likely that the matter concerns cartoons created by members of a public association “The Third Way” in 2005. A criminal case relating libeling the president was brought up then.