Freedom of speech in Lukashenka’s style

Independent journalist Aleh Razhkou was forcefully detained for filming a protest action near the building of the Homel region executive committee. Video materials were confiscated; the journalist feels pain when walking after the arrest.

Representatives of small business tried to express their protest against actions of the authorities who imposed a ban on selling beer in stalls. More than 100 people came to the building of the Homel region executive committee and demanded to meet with the town’s authorities. The chairman of the region executive committee refused to meet with the businessmen, and they passed the signatures under the protest statement to the Homel Administration.

As journalist Tatsyana Bublikava told the website baj.by, Aleh Razhkou was filming the event.

According to the journalist, two men in mufti came up to them. They showed their identities quickly and demanded the journalist to show what he had in his bag. They saw a camcorder and said it was wanted. According to Tatsyana Bublikava, the secret services officers were not interested in journalist’s card of Aleh Razhkou.

The journalist was guarded to the militia department of the Homel region executive committee. As BelaPAN leant from Razhkou, he spent more than three hours in the department. It was found out that the militia looked for another camcorder. But law enforcement officers became interested in cassettes with records of the action of entrepreneurs and seized them. Militia also tries to draw up an administrative report on the journalist for participation in an unauthorized event.

“After I explained the militiamen they violated the law on the mass media, they decided not to draw up the report, phoned their chiefs and discussed what to do with me. They didn’t draw up the report, but they can do it later if they want. They copied the record of the action of entrepreneurs to their computer and release me,” the journalist said.

Militiamen explained: they needed the record to find organizers of the event and bring them to responsibility for holding an unauthorized street event.

Aleh Razhkou told in an interview to the Charter’97 press center he had serious problems with his backbone after the detention – a nerve was pinched.

“My leg is aching, I’m lame, but militiamen were dragging me to the department. I said I could walk without their help, but they hurried me, grabbing me by arms. The backbone nerve was pinched, I can hardly walk. I had to call a doctor,” the journalist said.

We remind that Aleh Razhkou and his colleague Zmitser Karamzin were fined 20 basic units in late February allegedly for “violation of the rules of holding mass events”, though they were gathering in formation about the action in defence of the Belarusian language on February 21. The Homel region prosecutor’s office gave a warning to Aleh Ryzhkou and Tatsyana Bublikava “for journalist activity in favour of Belsat Polish satellite TV channel”.