Minsk Office of Radio Racyja Keeps Working

Seizure of the office equipment has not actually influenced the work of Radio Racyja Minsk office.

BelaPAN was informed about that be an employee of the radio station Barys Haretski.

We remind that on May 2 the news office of the radio station was searched. In the run-up to the official celebration of the Victory Day, policemen of the Central district of Minsk were on the beat visiting the flats in the houses situated near the Victory Square. Radio Racyja office is situated in one of these houses. A journalist who was on duty on that day, Henadz Barbarych, opened the door when policemen rang. When the policemen saw the logo of the radio station, and the equipment in the office, policemen called for reinforcement and searched the office. A system block and a notebook were seized.

“It has not influenced our work. We have notebooks, and we can convey information through them problem-free, including sound files. The only problem is that sometimes we recorded comments at our stationary office through a phone. And now we cannot do that. But there are no problems to transmit sound when recording by a Dictaphone,” Barys Haretski said.

Commenting on the situation, the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, a lawyer Andrei Bastunets called the search at the office of the independent radio station “an unpleasant present for the World Press Freedom Day, marked on May 3.”

“It is a rather speaking coincidence. Such a present has been received by the team of Radio Racyja, and by independent journalists of Belarus in general. I have an impression that the visit to the office was accidental, while the following actions of policemen, the seizure of the equipment and the search, are rather traditional. I do not see any grounds for seizure of the equipment,” Bastunets said.

Journalists of the radio station are set to challenge the actions of the policemen at all possible levels of authority, and primarily at the prosecutor’s office.

The editor-in-chief of Radio Racyja stays in Poland. The radio started its broadcasting for Belarus in 1999. Representatives of the Belarusian expat community in Poland and Belarusian journalists took part in its creation. In 2002 the radio had a three-year pause in its broadcasting. In 2006 the Belarusian informational centre in Bialystok was set up. It restarted broadcasting of Radio Racyja. Now it has FM band broadcasting, and also has online broadcasting.

Journalists of Radio Racyja has to work illegally in Belarus, as the Foreign Affairs Ministry had many times denied official accreditation to the radio station.