Svyatlana Kalinkina “was waited for” in lobby

Policemen also tried to search the flat of an independent journalist Iryna Halip

As Svyatlana Kalinkina has explained to ERB, policemen from Soviet District Department of the Interior waited for her in the lobby when she was coming back from work:

Svyatlana Kalinkina: “5 people were waiting for me in the lobby – a woman as a witness and four men. An investigator of Soviet District Department of the Interior Mr. Kaminski showed me the search warrant. It said my flat to be searched because the people who had insulted the former head of Homel Region affiliate of KGB were being looked for”.

According to the journalist, her and her son’s PCs, flash drives and a phone reference book were confiscated during the search. Kalinkina was surprised that she was not interrogated and that nobody informed her about her problems with the police.

There was one more misunderstanding.

Svyatlana Kalinkina: “The search protocol said I was the editor of the website of “Charter-97”. However, I am only a reader of this website, nothing else”.

There were no articles written by her and published in “Narodnya Volya” that could be connected with “the hunting case” either.

According to Svyatlana Kalinkina, investigators confessed that they only fulfilled the order – Homel Office of the Public Prosecutor investigating the case had obliged them to search her flat. Nevertheless, it suddenly turned out that the investigator who conducted the search was a good friend of two characters of Svyatlana Kalinkina’s article “How long ago did you cry? You are going to cry now” – investigators Yakzhyk and Vysakouski.
Policemen visited the flat of an independent journalist Iryna Halip on the same day. But she did not let them it. Iryna has informed ERB that the policemen told her their visit was connected with “the hunting case” . When she did not let them in they said they would ask the investigator to give them a search warrant.
Both journalists think that the interest of the police in them is an attempt to threaten the independent press.