Zhana Licvina: BelaPAN journalist’s rights violated

The situation is quite untypical. First the journalist was allowed to carry out his professional duties, but then a police brigade was called.

Impeding a journalist’s work is a blatant law violation. This is how the chairwoman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Zhana Licvina and the head of the multimedia department of BelaPAN news agency Yury Veltnier commented for the charter97.org web-site on the fact that police kicked out BelaPAN’s cameramen from the territory  of the exploaded building in Minsk.

“It is engrained in Belarusian legislation that journalists have a right to be present at mass events, in public places, collect and disseminate information from the places of events. Unfortunately, this is the article of the Republic of Belarus’ law “On mass media”, which is very often violated by the representatives of law enforcing agencies. Usually they explain this by the difficulty of distinguish a journalist from others. In this particular case our colleague showed a certificate of employment and at first he was allowed to film, but then for unknown reasons they removed him beyond the fence”, - Zhana Licvina noted.

“The satiation is quite untypical. At first he was allowed to carry out his professional duties, but then a police brigade was called for some reason and he was blatantly removed from the place of the accident. Such actions of the police towards our colleague are connected to the fact that he represented an independent media”, - Yury Veltnier emphasized.

We would remind that today, a BelaPAN news agency’s cameraman was kicked out by police from the territory near the building 85 in Plakhanava street in Minsk, where there was an explosion two days earlier. No reasons for removing the journalist from the place of the event were delivered.