Belsat journalist tries to protect TV camera when beaten by riot police in Ukraine
‘I was trying to protect our TV camera. That is why I have more head injures than there could be. I had been holding it in my hands until a Berkut soldier started pulling its wire out. I realized I stood no chance of saving it. But I hoped I would be able to take memory cards out. When he started to choke me I couldn’t stand any more and let it go. I might not have survived if it had lasted,’ Siarhei Marchyk says.
Please turn English subs on:
{movie}Siarhei Marchyk: ‘I tried to protect our camera’ (English subs)|right|14508{/movie}
‘We would say that any journalist – no matter where they from, what they aim at – may be attacked at any moment by Berkut, police, titushki and other black forces of this country,‘ he stresses.
A journalist Yuras Wysocki and a cameraman Siarhei Marchyk were battered while filming a violent dispersal of Ukrainian activists in Cherkasy (central Ukraine), their equipment and footage seized. One was diagnosed with brain concussion, the other spent a night at a police station. Neither Ukrainian nor Belarusian authorities reacted.
