BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
26/03/2008
Lithuanian Journalists Protest Belarus Police Assault
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AFP)--Two Lithuanian journalists who say they were assaulted and detained as police beat protesters at an opposition demonstration in neighboring Belarus want an official apology, their company said Wednesday.
"They want an explanation as to why Belarus authorities used brute force against them, why they confiscated video material and damaged their equipment," Ausra Leka, head of news at Lithuanian public television, told AFP.
"They also want an official apology, to get back the material they shot and compensation for the damage done by Belarussian police," said Leka, adding the journalists had asked the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk to step in.
Reporter Ruta Lankininkaite and cameraman Jonas Griskonis were detained by Belarussian police Tuesday as they filmed an unsanctioned demonstration by around 2,000 people in the center of Minsk.
The two journalists were taken to police headquarters, where they were questioned and their video material was confiscated.
Violeta Gaizauskaite, spokeswoman for the Lithuanian foreign ministry, said Vilnius was aware of the incident.
"Our embassy in Minsk met the journalists, who provided information about it," she said.
"We shall react adequately," she said, without elaborating.
The Minsk rally was held to mark the brief period of freedom enjoyed by Belarus after March 25, 1918, when it proclaimed its independence from the crumbling Russian empire. The so-called Belarussian National Republic survived for just nine months before a Red Army takeover, and its anniversary, which has been criticised by the country's leadership as anti-Soviet, has become a rallying point for the opposition.
An AFP reporter at the rally saw hundreds of riot police surrounded the crowd, beat them with truncheons and dragged dozens of people to waiting police vans. Officers also confiscated European Union flags and the red and white banner of the pre-Soviet state.
Western powers have long criticised the regime of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko for imprisoning opposition leaders, preventing criticism in the state-controlled media and imposing severe restrictions on rallies in Belarus, which became an independent country again in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Source:
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