In Minsk, the employees of the Belarusian Press Club were detained. They were suspected of concealing foreign financing and taken to the isolation ward to the surroundings

In Belarus, the security forces detained the leadership of the Press Club-an educational platform for journalists engaged in professional trainings and lectures, as well as monitoring local media for signs of propaganda and compliance with journalistic standards.

The founder of Press Club Julia Slutskaya was detained at the airport on December 22, when she returned to Belarus from vacation. Around the same time, searches took place at her house, in the office of Press Club and in the apartments of its other employees. After the searches to communicate, at least six people working in a press club ceased to go out. Among them are Russian citizen Sergey Yakupov, the host of the telegram channel @MediaMediame.

For almost two days, nothing was known about the whereabouts of journalists. On December 24, with reference to information from their relatives in the Press Club, they reported that Julia Slutskaya, Alla Sharko, Sergey Olshevsky, Peter Slutsky (son of Julia Slutskaya) and Sergei Yakupova are kept in an isolation ward on Vskrestin Street in Minsk. From there, they are periodically taken to interrogations to the Department of Financial Investigations.

The Department itself was officially informed that they are being verified “on the facts of violations of tax legislation”, including “with the receipt of large monetary amounts from abroad”. The TUT.BY source said that the searches were held as part of a criminal case of tax evasion on an especially large scale, and that journalists were detained for 72 hours.

The exemption of the detainees has already been required by the European Federation of Journalists. The press club emphasized that the organization will continue to work.

In Belarus, in recent months, the authorities regularly haunt journalists of independent publications, covering protests. Hundreds of media employees were detained at rallies, dozens of them were sent under arrest or beaten. At least nine journalists because of their work became defendants in criminal cases.

Grigory Levchenko