Police seize equipment from Belsat TV freelancers in Hrodna
Police officers in Hrodna, western Belarus have raided the apartments of freelance journalists Ales Dzianisau and Aliaksei Kayrys who cooperate with the independent TV channel Belsat.
Dzianisau and Kayrys were detained by plainclothed police agents on 23 July, reports the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ). They were held in a police station for more than two hours before being taken to their home for searches.
The raides ended late in the evening. The police seized three computers, a phone, a hard drive and memory sticks from Kayrys and a video camera, a phone and accessories from Dzianisau.
According to the police, the raids were part of the investigation under two cases - the work for a foreign media outlet without accreditation and insulting a public servant. In the view of Belarusian Association of Journalists, the insulting case may be associated with Sviatlana Zhylinskaya, an official with a Hrodna district housing maintenance service who was mentioned in the 20 March 2018 Belsat TV report Dormitory residents: We see a dead rat when we enter the shower with the child.
