Charge filed against investigative journo Dzyanis Ivashyn. KGB raids even his grandma’s place
On Monday, Belarusian security officers have searched the home of arrested journalist Dzyanis Ivashyn’s 95-year-old grandmother, human rights centre Viasna reports with reference to his wife Volha Ivashyna.
Dzyanis Ivashyn, a reputed Hrodna-based media worker contributing to Informnapalm OSINT community and the Novy Chas newspaper, was detained on March, 12. On the same day, the officers of the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) raided his flat in Hrodna as well as his parents’ place.
“They took out all data carriers (phones, laptops and computers), SIM cards, bank cards, books, notebooks, notes, money and various small things like flags, badges, business cards, etc. I was very interested in everything related to Ukraine, although the criminal article in the search warrant is allegedly about the dissemination of personal information,” Volha Ivashyna said on Facebook on Friday.
According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), Dzyanis Ivashyn has been charged under Art. 365 of the Criminal Code (‘interference in a police officer’s activity’). He has been taken into custody for two months and placed in the KGB remand prison.
On the back of post-election protests in Belarus, Novy Chas published the investigative report by Ivashyn in which he said that a number of former soldiers of the Ukrainian special forces unit Berkut were taking part in the brutal crackdown on Belarusian protesters. In 2014, pro-Yanukovych Berkut riot police were tainted by killings and torture of Euromaidan defenders. When the unit was disbanded, many Berkutters fled to Russia and Belarus, where some of them were spotted in dispersing peaceful rallies, Ivashyn states.
