Minsk: Police raiding office of popular Belarusian media outlet Nasha Niva, website down


NN editor-in-chief Yahor Martsinovich, archival photo.

On Thursday morning, officers of the notorious GUBAZiK/GUBOPiK came to the Vetraz building in Minsk. The editorial office of the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva (NN) is located there.

The media outlet‘s website cannot be loaded.

“Security officers are in the Nasha Niva office. They are also searching our accounting department. Editor-in-chief Yahor Martsinovich was detained, his house was searched. The home of Andrey Skurko, another editor of Nasha Niva, is also being searched. Editorial director Andrey Dynko is out of reach, he might have been detained as well. We cannot get reporter Natallya Lubneuskaya and photographer Shura Pilipovich-Sushchyts on the phone. It is not ruled out that they were in the office when the security officers arrived,” NN journalists say on Telegram.

The Belarusian Information Ministry states they have decided to restrict access to nn.by ‘in connection with their posting information, the distribution of which is prohibited by Paragraph 1 of Article 38 of the Law On Mass Media’.

(UPD) The police have seized the documents from the Nasha Niva accounting; they are going to search the flat of NN chief accountant Volha Rakovich.

(UPD-2) According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Yahor Martsinovich was held as he was walking his dog in the morning. He was later brought to his apartment by masked officers. In a video posted on Euroradio’s Telegram channel, Martsinovich appeared to have his hands cuffed behind his back as he was being escorted by the men from his apartment building to a vehicle.

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