KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Belarusian authorities on Tuesday stormed homes and offices of journalists and human rights activists in the latest move to crush protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Police searched the offices of the Belarusian Association of Journalists and the Viasna human rights center, as well as the apartments of its members, confiscating their equipment. More than 30 people were briefly detained and at least three remained in police custody, according to activists.
The top European human rights envoy denounced that searches and arrests in Belarus were unacceptable.
“Freedoms of expression, association and assembly must be ensured in accordance with international human rights standards,” Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic said on Twitter.
The leader of the Association of Belarusian Journalists, Andrei Bastunets, was one of the detainees and later released.
“This is the biggest repression Europe has ever had against journalists and rights activists,” said the association’s vice-president, Boris Goretsky, whose house was also searched. “There have been more than 400 arrests of journalists in the last six months and the authorities will not stop there.”
At least 10 of them were charged with criminality and remained in custody.
Authorities also stormed the headquarters of the Viasna human rights center in Minsk on Tuesday and searched the apartments of several of its activists, including the head of the group, Ales Bialiatski.
“This is an attempt to intimidate journalists and human rights activists who have been explaining to the world the incredible scale of the repressions,” said Valiantsin Stefanovic, deputy director of Viasna.
At least three Visna activists have remained in police custody following their arrest last Tuesday.
Belarus has been shaken by protests since the official results of the August 9 presidential election gave Lukashenko a sixth term in defeat. The main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and her supporters have rejected the result as manipulated and some poll workers have also described the manipulation of the vote.
Authorities have responded to the protests, the largest of which attracted up to 200,000 people, with strong repression. According to human rights defenders, more than 30,000 people have been detained since the protests began and thousands of them were brutally beaten.
The United States and the European Union have responded to the election and repression by introducing sanctions against Belarusian officials.
The Committee of Inquiry, the nation’s largest state investigative agency, said Tuesday’s searches are part of an investigation into the funding of the protests.
Tsikhanouskaya denounced the beatings and arrests of journalists and rights activists, saying “the regime is unleashing repression against those who defend human rights.”
Amnesty International denounced the beatings as a new escalation of retaliation against dissent.
“It is clear that this is a centrally organized and directed attempt to decimate the country’s independent media and human rights organizations through terrifying home attacks, harassment and persecution,” said Aisha Jung, main activist of the group in Belarus. “The authorities are determined to avoid them and discourage other people from doing their critical and legitimate work on human rights and journalism.”
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) demanded that the Belarusian authorities stop the persecution of journalists.
“We strongly condemn this outrageous act of violence and repression and demand that the Lukashenko government stop the harassment against our colleagues,” IFJ President Younes Mjahed said in a statement.