Minsk City Court dismisses appeals by Radio Racyja reporters

In the appeal the journalists drew attention to a large number of discrepancies and violations in the police’s testimonies and actions. According to the journalists, the policemen did not introduce themselves and did not name any reasons for detention, they did not provide procedural protocol, and in court they were unable to mention exactly the place of detention.

They insisted that the policemen were biased and interested to make the journalists guilty, because otherwise they would have been responsible themselves.

However, the judge found all these arguments insufficient and upheld the decision of the first instance court. Now the journalists have only the Supreme Court to appeal to.

We remind that several days later, on May 6, Aliaksandr Yarashevich, together with another journalist and blogger Dzmitry Halko, was again detained and arrested for 12 days under the same charges. The appeal in this second case was dismissed, too.