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Mediafiya

March 19, 2010 Irina Khalip

The only thing I managed to “recapture” during a search is the disk with the opera of the Belarusian composer Sergei Cortes “Bear”. "Will you listen to the opera?" - I was sincerely surprised. The operatives of the partisan police department of Minsk, who came to me with a search, thought and did not begin to remove the disk. They considered the opera they considered clearly too hard and ungrateful work in comparison with the implementation of small unpleasant assignments of the Gabists.

However, not only listening to opera music is too hard for them, but, as it turned out, simple coordination of actions. When my husband and I explained that our computer was already seized on the border on March 5, the operatives seemed sincerely surprised. Or pretended. They did not know that we were already interrogated in the same partisan police department either. I really hope that the operatives lied. Because if they were telling the truth, then such a police - with the absolute inconsistency of actions within the framework of even one area - is not able to disclose any crime due to complete professional unsuitability. And now also due to strong workload of digging in our computers and disks.

On Tuesday, March 16, searches were held not only in my apartment and in my husband’s apartment, but in the editorial offices of the Hartia'97 website and the newspaper Narodnaya Volya, and also at home at the deputy chief editor of the People’s Volya, Marina Koktysh. The apartment of the chief editor of the same newspaper Svetlana Kalinkina was searched even earlier and even a washing machine was dismantled on the screws. Natalia Radina, editor of the Charter'97, hit in the face. All searches from Belarusian journalists were carried out in the framework of a certain criminal case on the fact of slander against the head of the Gomel UKGB Ivan Korzh, whom none of us had ever seen in the eyes.

All the carriers of the information were seized with us - computers, flash drives, discs. I’m not talking about 47 ancient three-inch dishes found in the drawer with my husband of the desk. It was a pity to throw everything somehow, so they needed: for a couple of weeks, the Gabists would have enough work. And eight "chartic" computers? And seized in the "people's will", at home at Svetlana Kalinkina and Marina Koktysh? One can only imagine how many security forces could do during this time if they had spent it for a variety on the investigation and prevention of crimes, and not on searches for journalists and not to develop a washing machine. By the way, it is interesting why the police sorted it to the “washing”, and not something else-there are a lot of household appliances in every house now. Probably, the security forces are sincerely convinced that women keep all their secrets in washing machines, kitchen combines and cup banks.

The Black Tuesday special operation ended, but I have no doubt that Black Friday and other days of the week will still be replaced. In any case, when my husband and I asked the operatives where and when we were returns, they answered evasively: “We don’t know, you also meet with the investigators, and with the investigator, so ask them.” And then they started their favorite barrel organ with a song about small forced people who know nothing and do not ask superior to the authorities.

And we do not need to ask questions either to them or their superiors. Because from that very Tuesday it is clear as the day, that the cause of the special operation is not a showdown between power structures at all, and the goal is not a laundering of the unknown Ivan Korzh, but the journalists themselves. Well, the offended Gomel gabeshnik cannot call the Minsk guuedeshnik with a friendly request to scare journalists. And if it can call, the whole punitive machine will not rise for the sake of this good goal, because the not that scale is a figure.

And one more thing: judging by the consistency of the Tuesdays impossible for the police, he led either the KGB or the Council of Ministers. Which of them is no longer so important: there is no fundamental difference between horseradish and radish. And information stripping is pursued by the interests of only one person - Lukashenko. It is now advisable for him to hide everything from the ratio of salaries and prices to contacts with Iran and Venezuela. And if it is a stripping, then the hebukh access to journalistic computers, flash drives and discs, and also - to the documents there, dossier, electronic correspondence will create a nonsense field for large gabshell dirty tricks in relation to journalists and for new, already real, not fictitious, criminal cases. And about Ivan Korzh, everyone will forget soon: he is a worked out material. His name has already broken into the apartments of journalists, so walk, Vanya.

And finally, another important detail. Almost all of us, searched on Tuesday, have already been called for interrogations - we were told that we were passing in the Gomel case as witnesses. But the witnesses are not searches. So we are all suspects for a long time, or a really criminal case - a myth, an excuse, garbage on a stick. In any case, it will not be easier for us to work. But now we know for sure: they are afraid of us. I remember that during an interrogation in the police, the investigator Alexander Poznyak, the head of the inquiry department of the preliminary investigation of the partisan Medial Agricultural District Sergey Solonets called and shouted into the phone: “You make sure that there are no voice recorders there! And then after all, these scumbags are all details on the Internet! ” This is all afraid of this - publicity, “lights”, the release of surnames and actions. Indeed, for relatives and friends, they are Uncle Stepa, who protect order and legitimacy, and not six at all who are not capable of more than to rub computers from journalists and beat women. Therefore, they hate us. Therefore, we write and will write about them. Even if they destroy all the computers of the world.