The Human Rights House Foundation and Norwegian PEN strongly condemn the beating and arresting of journalists that were covering the arrest of presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin’s on Thursday 2 March. The police actions consider a severe violation of the right that all people have to practice their profession as a journalist according to article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reads the statement (15-MARCH-06).

Picture: Bymedia.net

The Human Rights House Foundation and Norwegian PEN strongly condemn the beating and arresting of journalists that were covering the arrest of presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin’s on Thursday 2 March. According to reports from Reporters without Borders and the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), plain-clothes police arrived in a bus to disperse the crowd as demonstrators and journalists gathered in front of the police station in Kastrychnitsky where Kozulin was being held.

Several agents seized Oleh Ulevich, Russian photo-correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus, while he was taking photos of the arrests of activists in front of the police station. They threw him to the ground and kicked him where he lay after he had showed his journalist identity card. After the beating he was then taken to the Leninsky police station with a broken nose and numerous bruises to his face. Yulia Darashevich, Aleksandr Grits and Vasily Fedosenko, respectively photographers for the weekly Nasha Niva and news agencies AP and Reuters, were detained and then released after police examined the pictures they took during the arrest.

Andrey Maksimov, journalist for Aleksandr Kozulin’s press service and Dzmitry Brushko, journalist on weekly Belgazeta, were both also arrested for several hours. Sergei Pulsha, correspondent for BelaPAN agency was struck in the face by a police officer. Finally, Dmitry Madorsky, cameraman for Reuters, was taken to the city’s hospital no 10 as a result of police violence.

The Human Rights House Foundation and Norwegian PEN consider police actions a severe violation of the right that all people have to practice their profession as a journalist according to article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The behaviour of the police is also in violation of the Belarusian media legislation. We therefore ask you, to explain your subordinates the norms of the current Belarusian legislature, which allow journalists to be present at the places of socially important events and to pass information from there. We also ask you to investigate the incident and, if necessary, to take legal proceedings against the police officers that are responsible for the mentioned violence.

Carl Morten Iversen                                                          Maria  Dahle
Executive Director                                                             Executive Director
Norwegian PEN                                                                 Human Rights House Foundation

Cc: Mr Naumov, Minister of Internal Affairs of Belarus