Aliaksandr Barazenka and Maria Artsybashava were detained by police not far from Pershamayskaya underground station in Minsk while performing their professional duties. The both have been contributing to our channel.
Interviewing passers-by Mr Barazenka and Ms Artsybashava were posing questions about youth organisations in Belarus.
Police officers were taken the journalists to the Leninsky District Directorate of Interior, to the Prosecutor’s Office and back to the Directorate. Having spent some hours in company of policemen, the contributors had to give explanations that they are freelancers working without any accreditation and promise to appear in a prosecutor’s when summoned.
It is to be recalled that in the morning five journalists who were to cover a mourning marathon on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of victims of political repressions were also detained.
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To our deepest regret, Belsat’s representatives have to perform their professional duties without any registration. In April 2013 Belsat TV made another attempt to get a formal accreditation and filed all the necessary documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But in vain: the Ministry’s officers refused to register its correspondent office in Minsk referring to Belsat contributors’ alleged law violations. It was the third time that Lukashenka’s regime had turned our application down.
