Details of Political Provocation on BTV

The First National Channel reported on Sunday, two laptops with electronic textbooks on terrorism had been seized from four activists of the Belarusian opposition. The activists were students of Polish universities.

According to the First Channel, the secret files found in one of the laptops contain an electronic encyclopedia of mines and detonators, a “Terrorist’s Reference-Book”, materials about organizing terrorist acts, and a “One Hundred Ways of Suicide” book. The channel says nothing about the contents of the second laptop seized from the detained.

Interfax reports, the border-guards detained Barys Haretski, press-secretary of the unregistered youth organization Young Front, an activist of Hrodna branch of YF, and two members of BPF, on the ground of revealing the above-mentioned texts in one of the laptops.

Aliaksei Trubkin, head of Navapolatsak branch of BPF Youth, told the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, the state television had dishonestly used outdated information in the report. The laptops (without any provocative files) had really been detained by the customs officers at Bruzhi border crossing. However, that happened in December 2006. The legal owners of the laptops are still in correspondence with the customs and prosecutor’s offices about their return. There is no information of new detentions of Barys Haretski and other activists. The Young Front press-secretary’s phone does not answer. Most probably, Barys Haretski is still in Strasbourg, participating in the international conference of NGOs organized by the Council of Europe.

It is unclear why the BTV decided to create such an informational provocation.