Hrodna: detention and search of Uladzimir Khilmanovich and Viktar Sazonau

Human rights activist Viktar Sazonau and journalist Uladzimir Khilmanovich were detained at the railway station in Hrodna.

Customs officers on order of frontier service searched the detainees and then release them, Radio Racyja reports.

Viktar Sazonau and Uladzimir Khilmanovich have been searched at the Belarusian-Polish border for six months. Neither border guards nor customs officers explained their close attention. Under Belarusian laws, there must be certain grounds for personal search, but customs officers don’t probable have such grounds, and explain their behavior by an order from above and the fact the detained people are on the special list of the KGB.

According to Viktar Sazonau, actions of border guards are a provocation and an attempt to hinder them in their professional activities.

The interest of the secret services in public activists, crossing the Belarusian borders, traditionally increases during political campaign in the country. But now no aggravation of the situation on the political stage is expected, and actions of border guards are rather strange. Viktar Sazonau and Uladzimir Khilmanovich don’t rule out that they can apply to the prosecutor’s office to question the lawfulness of such actions of border and customs services.