Activists of United Civil Party Are Detained for Distribution of Vremya Newspaper

On 17 January in Vitsebsk the police detained the vice-head of United Civil Party Alena Zaleskaya to Vitsebsk Kastrychnitski Borough Board of Internal Affairs (BBIA). There the police composed a protocol and confiscated several copies of the newspaper. She didn’t manage to convince them that the newspaper was issued officially and she didn’t violate anything. The policemen said they would pass the documents to court which would define whether she was guilty.

In the evening of 5 January the police detained A. Tsurbakow in Homel. A policeman came up to Tsurbakow when he distributed the newspaper, read it and called for support. Then A. Tsurbakow was taken to a BBIA, where the police composed the report of detention, confiscated eight copies of the edition and took the detainee’s fingerprints. In 1,5 hours Tsurbakow was let go. On 10 January he was summoned to the police again. They asked him to bring a copy of the newspaper’s registration certificate and a copy of the agreement for distribution. When he did it, they returned to him the confiscated copies of the newspaper.

We should remind that Vremya was suspended for three months on 24 August 2004 by having allegedly issued two numbers under non-existent juridical address. The editorial board complained against the suspension order and on 12 November the Supreme Economic Court found the order lawless. In December the newspaper renewed its issue.

Monitoring service of Belarusian Association of Journalists