BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

27/03/2008

KGB agents search journalist apartments and offices all over Belarus

Apartments of Belarus journalists working for foreign media or media that is financed from abroad are searched today all over the country, news agencies are reporting. State Security

Committee (KGB) officers have been searching apartments of journalists of media financed by the European Union: Independent Radio Racyja, non-state EuroRadio, independent satellite TV channel Belsat. This morning KGB agents burst into apartments of journalists and contributors of Belsat, most of them were detained and charged with insult of President Lukashenko, according to online paper Gazeta.pl. Journalists are detained in Minsk, Gomel, Grodno, Vitebsk, Brest, Bobruisk and Beroza, online paper Khartiya'97 reports.

News agency BelaPAN confirms that searches of journalist apartments and offices are held all over Belarus, referring to lawyer of Belarusian Association of Journalists Andrei Bastunets. All journalists that had been connected with Western media in this or that way have been attacked, he says. It is done under a pretext of a criminal case allegedly brought up on charges relating insult of the president.

The head of Belarusian Journalists' Association, Zhanna Litvina, told news agencies the crackdown was in retaliation for the coverage of a rally earlier this week marking what the opposition has traditionally called Freedom Day. The banned holiday marks the anniversary of the 1918 declaration of the first, short-lived independent Belarusian state. KGB officials refused to comment.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1520

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