NTV Group Detained in Minsk :: Charter'97 :: News

Minsk police captured the NTV group, which recorded on video an interview with the spouse of the former rector of the Gomel Medical University Yuri Bandazhevsky near the prison, where the man is serving his term. Bandazhevsky was sentenced to eight years of jail over the bribery charges. Director of the NTV representation in Minsk Pavel Selin, cameraman Konstantin Morozov and assistant Dmitry Davydenko had to give written explanations to police why they did what they did. After that all three were let go.

Pavel Selin told the Charter’97 press-center that the NTV people were about to interview Galina Bandazhevskaya near the jail walls – the lady came to Minsk for a date with her husband. Selin claims that their camera didn’t face the fence or the prison and that they were 150 meters away from the place. However, right at the moment when the cameraman recorded the woman, walking towards the prison gates, the journalists were approached by the deputy head of the colony lieutenant-colonel Los. He took the reporters’ Ids and called for police.

Upon their arrival, the law-enforcers from the Frunzensky police station manifested intention to seize the equipment from the group. When the journalists categorically refused to give their camera to the police, the law-enforcers threatened to call for KGB, who “know their job well”. An hour later, though, the three men were set free. Commenting on the incident to Charter’97 Pavel Selin said that “he’s glad that our prison guards are so attentive. Nobody can go past them unnoticed. Neither those who’re are beyond the fence, nor those who are before it.”