Chief editor complains to prosecutors over police raid on opposition newspaper’s office

The chief editor of the Tovarishch, a newspaper of the opposition Belarusian Party of Communists, has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Leninski District Prosecutor’s Office in Minsk in connection with last month’s police raid on the newspaper’s office.

Policemen seized thousands Tovarishch copies during the September 27 raid and Editor-in-Chief Syarhey Vaznyak claims that he was mistreated by the police officers.

“While seizing the print-run of the Tovarishch newspaper, the policemen used force, twisting my arms, to take away my cell phone that I was going to use to tell the party’s leaders about the incident,” Mr. Vaznyak told BelaPAN.

In the complaint, the editor says that the policemen violated certain rules while seizing the copies.

The police have not returned the seized copies so far. “The police officer responsible for its seizure has been away from work for three days and has not picked up his office phone. There’s an impression that he’s hiding from me. He promised to call me but he does not,” Mr. Vaznyak said.

A total of 14,000 Tovarishch copies were seized by police in Minsk and Zhlobin, Homyel region, on September 27.