Belarusian police raid TV station in Minsk

The raid came around a week after hundreds of protesters were arrested in the country’s capital during marches on Saturday marking Freedom Day, an unofficial holiday commemorating the creation of the Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918.

Aleksy Dzikawicki, a high-ranking Belsat employee, was quoted by the station as saying that he believed the raid at the station’s office on Friday “had to do with the active online and website coverage of the protests against the Decree #3 and the crackdown on the Freedom Day marches”.

“It angered the authorities, because we still have this lever and opportunity to show a [moving TV image] rather than just cover the events online. Now authorities are trying to restrict information about the protests. We saw the first symptoms of this in the first half of March, when [authorities] began to detain our journalists,” Dzikawicki said.

“Belsat is ready for such actions. Our channel will broadcast news no matter what,” he added.

The station said that Minsk police has given an official reason for the raid, explaining that it is investigating a case of “illegal use of a trademark”. Belsat added that “audio and video equipment was seized to perform the necessary procedural actions”.

According to the Belsat website, the station functions despite the “repressive media laws in Lukashenko-led Belarus.

It adds that “Belsat TV is the only Belarusian-language independent television channel. It was formed in 2007 by a group of Belarusian and Polish journalists as part of Telewizja Polska in partnership with Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and several European governments and foundations.”

The Polish foreign ministry has appealed to Belarusian authorities to “urgently explain the searches made at Belsat TV”.

A ministry spokesman said that the Polish foreign ministry is keeping a close eye on the developments in Minsk, and is keeping in touch with both the local diplomatic services and the management of other television stations in Minsk.

(rg/pk)