Special correspondent of Dozhd TV channel, Russia, deported from Belarus

A special correspondent of “Dozhd” TV channel (Russia) was detained in Minsk after interviewing the wife of Andrei Sannikov.

As Gazeta.ru informs, policemen seized the journalist’s camera and deleted the interview with Iryna Khalip from the memory card.

Rodion Marinichev has been banned entry to Belarus for the next 5 years. The correspondent has told about that during the conversation with the editor-in-chief of “Dozhd” TV channel Mikhail Zygar in a live broadcast.

As said by Marichev, he is to leave Belarus within 24 hours.

The journalist has also told that he had been pretending he was a private individual until policemen found the recorded interview.

During the conversation the correspondent warned that the phone was wiretapped by KGB men.

“Let me take this opportunity to say hello to the KGB,” Zygar made a joke, and gave an advice not to film anything and not to record anything to the memory stick, so it would be possible to restore the information deleted from the memory card in Moscow.

We remind that on May 14 the presidential candidate in Belarus, Andrei Sannikov, was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. In a few days the court handed down a two-year suspended jail sentence to the journalist of “Novaya gazeta” (Russia) Iryna Khalip. They both were found guilty of organizing the so-called mass riots on December 19, 2010 after the presidential election in Belarus.

The US has condemned the verdict to Andrei Sannikov. Representatives of the US Department of State have called upon the authorities of Belarus to release the presidential candidates and their supporters immediately. Moreover, the US threatens to impose new sanctions against the country’s leadership.