Police place local journalist in custody for 72 hours

February 16, BPN. Police have placed an Intex-press jounralist in custody for 72 hours.

The local journalist was summoned to a Baranavičy police department for questioning at 10:00 am. Later, her fellow reporters have learned that she is in custody on unknown charges, the newspaper reports.

One day earlier, law enforcers came to the Intex-press publishing house to seize its equipment, citing complaints about its YouTube channel.

The local newspaper has faced intense pressure from the authorities after April 2021, when it published an interview with opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja. It was subsequently branded as “extremist content.” Editor in chief Uładzimir Janukievič and the publishing house were fined because of the interview.

In May 2021, the Belarusian Printing House refused to print Intex-press. For the first time in 26 years, the newspaper only issued an electronic version. Other printers also refused to cooperate with it.

All major retail chains in Baranavičy refused to sell Intex-press. State company Biełpošta stopped distributing the newspaper by subscription, and Biełsajuzdruk’s Brest branch cancelled the agreement to sell it through a network of newsstands and stores.

On July 8, 2021 agents of the Committee for State Security (KGB) searched the newsroom and the homes of Intex-press managers, confiscating computers.

On May 12, 2022 Intex-press newsroom was searched and equipment was confiscated in the case of Juryj Hancarevič, a reporter accused of supporting extremism for sharing a picture of military aircraft on a Baranavičy airfield. On July 14, the Brest Regional Court sentenced him to two-and-a-half years in prison, and on September 20, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

At the end of June, last year, the newspaper was stripped of its license.