The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

18.05.2010 Dozens searches across Belarus

The local offices of the ‘Havary Praudu’ civil campaign are searched by the police and the KGB, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. The cities under attack include Brest, Homel, Hrodna, Barysau, Mahiliou and Minsk. The search at the campaign’s Minsk office was sanctioned by the city’s Leninski Prosecutor’s Office. The law enforcement agencies seize office equipment and printed materials.

04.05.2010 Zmitser Salauyou complaints to General Procuracy about search

Human rights defender Zmitser Salauyou lodged with the General Procuracy a complaint about actions of the police officers who had searched on 3 May an apartment owned by him.

03.05.2010 Public statement by Human Rights Center ‘Viasna’ concerning search at Zmitser Salauyou’s office in Navapolatsk

On 30 April the police searched the private office of the human rights defender Zmitser Salauyou in Navapolatsk. The search was sanctioned by the town procurator, Anatol Ausiuk, and V.Karenski, Chair of the operative crime detection activities section of the investigation department of the Navapolatsk Town Police Department, within the frames of the criminal case instigated under Article 341 of the Criminal Code – ‘Defilement of buildings and destruction of property’ on the fact of inscriptions with swastikas on walls of different houses of the town. Computer system units, CDs, many printed editions and white-red-flags were confiscated as a result of the search.

30.04.2010 HR activist’s office searched (updated)

According to the Navapolatsk human rights activist Zmitser Salauyou, his office is currently being searched by the police. The search was sanctioned by the town’s prosecutor’s office and is said to be linked to a criminal case initiated by the local police under Article 341 of the Criminal Code – ‘desecration of buildings and damage to property’ – following a number of inscriptions made on some of the town’s buildings.

17.04.2010 Laptop and flash cards seized from local council candidate

Houses of oppositional local council candidate Alyaksandr Zarembyuk and his parents in the town of Masty were searched.

A laptop and other things were searched. As Radio Svaboda reports, Ales Zarembyuk is to visit investigator Pavedaika in the Hrodna region KGB department on Saturday morning. He is called to the department as a suspect.

09.04.2010 KGB interested in oppositionists' computers

On 9 April, Andrei Sannikau, the European Belarus leader, received back his laptop, unlawfully seized on the border.

01.04.2010 Mass searches of opposition activists in Belarus

Opposition activists are searched under pretence of receiving an anonymous message about a possible terrorist act.

30.03.2010 Police raid apartments of Brest anti-Fascists

The Brest police searched the private apartments of a number of local anti-Fascist activists and seized several PCs, European Radio for Belarus reports, quoting Belarusian Helsinki Committee human rights activist Valiantsin Lazarenkau.

17.03.2010 Charter-97 editor-in-chief appeals searches at prosecutor’s office

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of the charter97.org major opposition web-site, lodged a complaint with Minsk Leninski Prosecutor’s Office against a number of illegal searches and confiscations carried out by the law enforcement agencies on 16 March.

17.03.2010 Committee to Protect Journalists denounces police raids on independent journalists in Belarus

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Tuesday`s wave of police raids targeting independent reporters in Belarus.

17.03.2010 Police stage fresh wave of raids on independent journalists

Minsk`s police staged Tuesday a new wave of searches targeting independent journalists in connection with a high-profile criminal case known as a hunting case.

16.03.2010 SEARCH IN CHARTER'97 PRESS-CENTER

On March 16, Police burst in Charter’97 website’s press-room. Computers seized. Editor of site charter97.org beaten.

Policemen and people in mufti have burst in the office rented by journalist Natalya Radzina, justifying that by the fact that they are carrying out operative work in the case on the suit of some criminal.

17.02.2010 Working place of journalist Maryna Koktysh searched by police

At about 12.30 a.m. on 17 February the Belarusian Association of Journalists learned about the search in the editorial office of the Narodnaya Volia newspaper, at the working place of deputy editor Maryna Koktysh.