On 2 May, as part of the preparation to the official Victory Day celebrations, Minsk police department officers were making rounds of the apartments located close to the Victory Square, the venue of the forthcoming festivities. Radio “Racyja” has its office in one of the buildings which were checked. Journalist Henadz Barbarych was the one who opened the door after the police rang the doorbell. Seeing the logo of the radio station and office equipment, the policemen called for reinforcement, searched the office, and took away a computer system unit and a laptop.

“They said that allegedly the neighbours had some complaints. Although this is not true, because we are always quiet and calm here. They started looking through the newspapers and books that we had at the office”, says the Radio “Racyja” reporter Henadz Barbarych.

They took our computers

“Their attention was drawn to the book on 2010 election mass protests, which had been published by “Viasna” [human rights centre]. That was when they started to search everything thoroughly. They called their superiors from the Central police department, who arrived shortly, headed by the deputy chief Anatol Shakhlay. About eight or nine people arrived. They took our computers – a laptop and a desktop computer system unit.

Then I told them that I was a journalist. They somehow changed their attitude towards me, as previously they treated me rather aggressively. They drew up a report on confiscation of equipment. I signed it. They said it was being taken for inspection. It was a real search, though without the sanction of the prosecutor. Answering to my comment, a police officer said that he was interested in what we had here, and this was not a search. They looked through all the papers, notebooks, however, my personal belongings were not touched”, Barbarych recalls.

Commenting on the situation, Andrei Bastunets, lawyer and Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, called the search of the independent radio station office “an unpleasant gift on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day celebrated on 3 May”.

“The coincidence is rather conspicuous. This is a “present” to the Radio “Racyja” staff and indeed to all independent journalists in Belarus. I have the impression that that visit of the police was accidental, but the subsequent actions with the confiscation of equipment and search were rather traditional. I see no reason for them to seize the equipment”, Bastunets said.

Representatives of the radio station are going to lodge a complaint against the actions of the police in all possible institutions, particularly in the prosecutor’s office.

Freedom House: Belarus among the five worst enemies of press freedom

The “Freedom of the Press 2012″ report says that out of 197 countries and territories in which freedom of expression has been studied, 66 belong to the category of “free”, 72 are classified as “partly free” and 59 – as “not free”.

In this ranking, Belarus has traditionally featured among the worst countries regarding media freedom – it ranks 193th out of the total of 197 countries and territories. Only Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and North Korea have less press freedom than Belarus.

Freedom House analysts commented on the countries rated “worst of the worst” in the report: “In these states, independent media are either nonexistent or barely able to operate, the press acts as a mouthpiece for the regime, citizens’ access to unbiased information is severely limited, and dissent is crushed through imprisonment, torture, and other forms of repression”.

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