Arrested journalist to spend 3 days in Minsk detention centre - daughter


Tut.by news editor Halina Ulasik who was detained on Tuesday morning will have to spend three days in the detention centre in Minsk, her daughter Valeryia Ulasik told belsat.eu.

“I have just been contacted by an employee of the Investigative Committee. According to him, Halina Ulasik will be staying [in prison] for three days, I am not allowed to visit her, but one can leave a parcel for her. In three days, they will either be charged or released,” the girl explained.

According to her, law enforcers conducted a search at her mother’s place on August, 7.

“In the morning, my SIM card was blocked for unknown reason. I guess they did it to prevent my mother from informing me of what was going on. Later, my friends made me aware of the events,” Valeryia said.

Apart from Ulasik, tut.by journalists Maryna Zolatava, Hanna Kaltyhina, Ulyana Babayed and BelaPAN reporter Tatsyana Karavyankova were also detained. According to preliminary information, Zolatava and Kaltyhina will be put behind bars for three days as well.

As reported earlier, the Minsk police raided the offices of tut.by, one of the biggest media outlets in Belarus, and BelaPAN, the only private news agency in the country. Computers and documents were seized in the course of the searches.

After Iryna Akulovich, Head of state-controlled news agency BelTA, had reported ‘illegal access to their premium content’, the Belarusian Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case under the article ‘unauthorized access to computer information, made out of personal interest, which caused significant harm’. According to the authorities’ version, some employees of the above-mentioned media outlets have used another person’s password and got information owned by the Lukashenka mouthpiece over the past two years.

КА, belsat.eu

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