The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

During a special press-conference on 17 August, the wife of Viktar Hanchar together with the mother of Dzmitry Zavadski declared that the relatives of the missing persons demand an international investigation of the ‘disappearances.’ According to Zinaida Hanchar, they have sent 6 addresses to Belarusian Prosecutor General Ryhor Vasilevich, PACE, and a number of world top-leaders – Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel. ‘Belarusian officials have mentioned either the Russian or the German clue, and even the commercial character of the crimes. However, it is absolutely obvious that all this is nothing but an effort to divert attention from the actual reasons for the kidnapping of the famous Belarusians,’ says the address.

An NTV film crew was shooting a film in Minsk about the disappeared politicians.

Aleksey Malkov and Yury Babenko were detained on August 14 in the hotel of the International Education Center (IBB) where they had stayed.

As the website www.charter97.org learnt that officers of secret services in mufti got the journalists out of the room at 7:00 p.m. The people signed Malkov and Babenko out. According to the preliminary information, the journalists were guarded to the Maskouski district militia department.