Police Tried to Enter Flat of Belsat TV Channel Representative in Minsk, Independent Reporter Brought to Court
3 February 2010 a group of police officers tried to enter a flat, rented by an official representative of Belsat TV Channel in Minsk Mihas Yanchuk. As a result of the incident an independent journalist Ivan Shulha, a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, was detained. 4 February Ivan Shulha was brought to court and charged with minor hooliganism.
3 February around 3 p.m. unknown people started knocking on the door of the flat Mihas Yanchuk rents in Minsk. At that time he was not inside, but there were several journalists. Several minutes before Ivan Shulha, who had been leaving the flat, managed to call his colleagues from outside the building using an entrance door intercom. He warned them that the police were coming to the building. After that Ivan was detained, and until next morning it was impossible to trace his location.
In some minutes after the warning had come, somebody started to knock heavily on the door of the flat, but the journalists who stayed there did not open it. After that electricity was switched off in the flat. The journalists stayed under the «siege» for almost an hour and a half. After that Mihas Yanchuk and a group of journalists arrived to the flat. Mr. Yanchuk asked three men in plain clothes who were standing in front of the flat about the reasons they were there. One of the men introduced himself as a Senior Lieutenant Karalkou from Savetski District Department of Minsk City Police. He explained that the police had received some complaints from people in neighboring flats that they allegedly had seen drunken people coming out of the flat, that is why the police decided to go and check the flat.
Mihas Yanchuk refused to give the police any further explanations about the flat. Neither him, nor any other journalists who were at the flat was detained. According to Mr. Yanchuk, it became possible only thanks to solidarity of their colleagues who came to the place of the incident to cover the story. All in all, there were about 15 journalists of Belarusian independent media and from Russian TV Channel «Russia» there.
The only person detained was Ivan Shulha. His colleagues and representatives of the Belarusian Association of Journalists were trying to find out where he was, they called all the police stations in Minsk, but could not find any information about Ivan’s location.
Only today, 4 February, it became known that Ivan Shulha was detained, and then brought to court and charged with minor hooliganism. The court hearings on Shulha’s administrative case started at 12.30 on Thursday, but no journalists were allowed to be present during the hearings.
