Third criminal case initiated against charter97.org website

In the framework of this criminal case computers confiscated from the office of the website are to be examined again.

A journalist of charter97.org website Natallya Radzina has been told about that by the head of the investigation department of the prosecutor’s office of Minsk Syarhei Ivanou.

Ivanou told that the new criminal case had been initiated on the grounds of information found in the computers confiscated from Natalya Radzina, as well as from a journalist of “Novaya Gazeta” (Russia), the wife of the presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, Iryna Khalip, and journalists of “Narodnaya Volya” Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh.

The representative of the prosecutor’s office refused to tell on charged related to which article the criminal case had been initiated. He only noted that in the nearest future one more (the third!) expert examination of the office equipment seized from the journalist is to be held.

Ivanou has not told in which status the journalists would be in the new criminal case. “We shall qualify you as witnesses if necessary,” he added.

“It looks as if the Belarusian authorities have decided to set a record. It is the third criminal case against us this year. It is symptomatic for the foreign countries, it demonstrates crackdown on independent journalists in the run-up to the presidential election in Belarus. The aim is clear – an attempt to intimidate us, make us keep silent, and certainly find one more pretext not to give back the office equipment which was seized 10 month ago. But these vain attempts are ridiculous. We are working and we shall continue to work, no matter how they will try to get in our way. And we would like to advise workers of the prosecutor’s office not to persecute dissent. Then they won’t have to follow the latest Lukashenka’s aphorism: “When you see a slit –run for it!” Natallya Radzina comments.

Belarusian journalists Natalya Radzina, Iryna Khalip, Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh are prsecuted in the framework of the criminal case opened on alleged fact of defamation in the mass media against a former head of the KGB Department of Homel region Ivan Korzh.

On March 16, offices and apartments of the journalists were searched and their computers were seized. The greatest number of computers, 8, was seized from charter97.org office. The rest journalists were confiscated PCs both from offices and private apartments. Plainclothed policemen tried to enter the apartment rented by Natallya Radzina without showing a warrant. The journalist was hit in her face. Radzina’s appeal against unlawful actions of the policemen was dismissed.

Recently this criminal case was called on by the headship of Minks city prosecutor’s office from the Interior Affairs department of Homel.

One more criminal case was initiated against charter97.org website for comments of its visitors.