Youths picked up by plainclothesmen at media exhibition in Minsk for defiantly displaying pro-opposition newspapers :: Charter'97 :: News

More than 20 young people were arrested by plainclothesmen at a media exhibition in Minsk on Thursday. A dozen of them were grabbed and put into a minibus outside the BelExpo exhibition center a minute after they opened copies of the pro-opposition newspapers Tovarishch, Narodnaya Volya and Nasha Niva beside the stall of the largest government-controlled paper Sovetskaya Belorussiya at 3:30 p.m.

More young people were apprehended at the entrance to the center and near the stalls of Belarusian Television and another government-controlled television channel, ONT. Some of them wore either white-red-white colored T-shirts or badges featuring a symbol of opposition forces.

At 3:45 p.m., the detained youths were driven away to an unknown destination.

A man who introduced himself as Sergei Sivets, a senior officer of the Minsk city police department, warned a BelaPAN correspondent and other reporters at the scene that they also might be held responsible for the organization of the “flash mob.” He alleged that by their questions, the journalists had provoked the young people into “committing illegal acts.”

When asked about the grounds for the detentions, he said that that was a “technical matter” for the police.