{"id":3435,"date":"2020-12-22T18:25:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T18:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=142388"},"modified":"2020-12-22T18:25:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T18:25:13","slug":"belarusian-press-clubs-chief-detained-offices-and-homes-searched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/22\/belarusian-press-clubs-chief-detained-offices-and-homes-searched\/","title":{"rendered":"Belarusian Press Club’s Chief Detained; Offices And Homes Searched"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n

MINSK — The head of the Belarusian Press Club, Yulia Slutskaya, has been detained by police<\/a><\/strong> in Minsk. Authorities have also searched the offices of the independent journalistic organization and the homes of some of its members.<\/p>\n

Slutskaya’s relatives said on December 22 that she was detained when she arrived back in Belarus after a holiday abroad where she had spent time with her daughter and grandchildren. The relatives said they do not know Slutskaya’s current whereabouts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the program director of the Belarusian Press Club, Ala Sharko, informed the Belarusian Journalists’ Association that police stormed into her apartment on December 22.<\/p>\n

Sharko’s lawyer, Syarhey Zikratski, says police forced him out when he arrived at the apartment during the search operation.<\/p>\n

The Belarusian Press Club said via its Instagram account that police also searched the apartment of Syarhey Yakupau<\/a><\/strong>, the director of the group’s educational programs.<\/p>\n

The moves come just days after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) listed Belarus as a country where authorities have significantly increased their arrests of reporters in recent months..<\/p>\n

The arrests come as mass protests continue across the country over a disputed presidential election in August.<\/p>\n

Election officials in Minsk say incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka won a landslide victory. Opposition supporters say the results were rigged in Lukashenka’s favor.<\/p>\n

Since August, at least 373 journalists have been arrested in Belarus. At least six remain in custody.<\/p>\n

In October, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry revoked media accreditations from several foreign news organizations in a move widely criticized as an attempt to stifle reporting about ongoing anti-government demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2011, the Belarusian Press Club calls itself “a platform for professional development of independent media and journalists.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINSK \u2014 The head of the Belarusian Press Club, Yulia Slutskaya, has been detained by police in Minsk. Authorities have also searched the offices of the independent journalistic\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,4,23,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3436,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions\/3436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}