(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – In a 29 March 2001 letter to Aleksandr Lukashenka, ARTICLE 19 expressed concern over the arbitrary detention and beating by Grodno police of Dmitri Yegorov, which occurred on 25 March. Yegorov, 17, is a photojournalist for Grodno-based non-state newspaper “Birzha Informacji”. According to ARTICLE 19’s information, on 25 March, Yegorov was detained […]
(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – In a 29 March 2001 letter to Aleksandr Lukashenka, ARTICLE 19 expressed concern over the arbitrary detention and beating by Grodno police of Dmitri Yegorov, which occurred on 25 March. Yegorov, 17, is a photojournalist for Grodno-based non-state newspaper “Birzha Informacji”.
According to ARTICLE 19’s information, on 25 March, Yegorov was detained by police during the opposition-organised “Freedom Day” demonstration. After taking two photographs of the heavy build-up of riot police in the centre of Grodno, the photojournalist was seized and dragged into a police vehicle, despite saying that he was a journalist. His camera, pager and dictaphone were taken from him, and the camera and cassette in the dictaphone were broken.
The police then subjected him to a complete body search and beat him on the head and chest. They accompanied the beaten with threats such as: “If there’s an [newspaper] article [presumably about this incident], we know where to find you!” Requests to inform his family and work colleagues about his detention were refused and resulted in more beatings. He was then taken to a prison and symbolically shown where non-state journalists “ought” to be kept, before being released. The police returned his broken camera and dictaphone to Yegorov. He is now in hospital, suffering from a severe concussion.
This is not the first time non-state journalists have been detained or beaten by police in Belarus while carrying out their professional duties. Indeed, on 25 March 2000, thirty-six Belarusian and foreign journalists and cameramen were arrested while covering the opposition-organised “Freedom March” (see IFEX alerts of 28 and 27 March 2000). They were detained in an Interior Ministry building for two hours, much of their equipment was broken or confiscated, and camera film was exposed. During this time, none of them were allowed to inform friends or colleagues of their detention.
ARTICLE 19 condemns the use of such tactics to inhibit the operations of non-state journalists in Belarus. Article 39 of Belarus’ Law on Press and Other Mass Media states that journalists have the right to “be present at (…) meetings and demonstrations, in places of other public important events and deliver information therefrom”. The authorities should respect this right in practice, and should not in any way obstruct journalists from carrying out their professional duty to inform the public about such events.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the president:
- stating that the harassment and intimidation of journalists is in clear violation of Belarus’s international obligations to guarantee freedom of expression under Article 19 of the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
- calling on him to ensure that the police cease attacking and intimidating individual journalists who are carrying out their professional duties
- asking him to take immediate steps to investigate the most recent attack and bring those responsible to justice
- demanding that he install guarantees for the functioning of a free and independent press, particularly in light of the presidential elections scheduled for later this year
Appeals To
H.E. Aleksandr Lukashenka
Presidential Administration
ul. Karla Marksa 36
220010 Minsk
Belarus
Fax: +375 17 223 58 25
Please copy appeals to Vladimir Naumov, Fax: +375 17 226 1247, and ARTICLE 19 if possible.