Minsk: Circulation of Tovarishch Newspaper Is Detained, a Part Is Carried away in Unknown Direction

Source: www.baj.ru
In the morning of 17 March the police detained the print run of the non-state newspaper Tovarishch that had been printed in Moscow and delivered to Belarus without any problems. The edition's editor-in-chief Siarhei Vazniak informed the BAJ press service that at about 8 a.m., when they were unloading the issues from the truck to Siarhei Kaliakin's private garage in Karastaianava Street, a police patrol was passing by. When they noticed what was going on they immediately called for reinforcement. The police ordered to stop the unloading, close the truck and drive it to bus fleet #7. Soon the police from the department of organized crimes took away the newspapers that were left in the truck and drove them away in unknown direction.

According to S.Vazniak it was a regular issue of Tovarishch that was to come out on Tuesday. After the Smolensk printing house refused to cooperate with the newspaper the edition found a printing house in Moscow. On Thursday 200 issues of the edition were printed there. The truck with the print run was not even stopped at the Russian-Belarusian border.