Independent journalists summoned to police again

Natallya Radzina, Iryna Khalip, Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh have been called in to police department of Pershamajski district of Minsk again.

The senior interrogating officer of the Interior Affairs department of Homel Alyaksandr Puseu told to the journalists he plans to familiarize them with the results of the new check-up of the computers seized from them. "Familiarizing" is to start at the noon with the meeting with editor of the newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” Svyatlana Kalinkina, and is traditionally finish with interrogation of charter97.org website journalist Natallya Radzina who has been called in at 2 p.m.

We remind that as a result of the first check-up of the computers seized in the news office of charter97.org website, no materials insulting honour and dignity of the former head of the Homel region KGB department Ivan Korzh, for which a criminal case was opened. However at the last interrogation Natallya Radzina was offered to read a decision about additional examination of the computers which aim is find out whether charter97.org website was administered from those computers, and to hack passwords of mail and Skype accounts to find out the contact lists.

The aim of the additional examination in the computers of the editor-in-chief of "Narodnaya Volya" Svyatlana Kalinkina, the deputy editor of "Narodnaya Volya" Maryna Koktysh and a journalist of the Russian newspaper "Novaya gazeta" Iryna Khalip was also to restore ciphered and deleted documents and retrieve passwords from mail accounts and Skype.

Belarusian journalists Natallya Radzina, Iryna Khalip, Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh are persecuted in the framework of the criminal case opened allegedly for defamation in the press against the former head of the Homel region KGB department Ivan Korzh.

On March 16 in news offices and flats of the journalists searches were held and computers sezied. In the news office of charter97.org website the number of the seized computers was the largest one, 8 items. Initially policemen in mufti tried to enter the flat rented by Natallya Radzina without showing a search warrant. They hit the journalist on the face. Radzina was denied a right to appeal against the illegal actions of the policemen.