Belarus Detains DW Correspondent Amid Broader Crackdown
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent
(Worthy News) – German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) says one of its freelance journalists has been sentenced to 20 days in jail in Belarus. The punishment came shortly after a senior military officer was jailed for leaking documents to the press about a government crackdown on protesters.
DW confirmed in a statement that its Belarus correspondent Alexander Burakov was sentenced Saturday to nearly three weeks behind bars for participating in what authorities called an “unauthorized event.”
It said Burakov was detained Wednesday while waiting with other journalists for access to the trial of six people charged with mass unrest.
DW condemned the move. It said classifying journalists waiting outside the courthouse as a ‘banned gathering’ was another step by President Alexander “Lukashenko’s regime to suppress critical media reports.”
The broadcaster also quoted Burakov as saying that he was repeatedly awakened at night and forced to strip naked while in pre-trial detention.
His penalty comes a day after a Belarusian military officer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for leaking a document related to the government’s crackdown on protests against the country’s authoritarian president.
LEAKED DOCUMENT
The officer, Captain Dzianis Urad, was accused of giving the media a copy of a government directive urging the military to help put down the demonstrations.
Belarus’ Supreme Court handed Urad an 18-year prison sentence and stripped him of his military rank for the actions that it claimed: “hurt national security.”
Earlier this month, President Lukashenko reportedly stripped 80 military and police officers of their ranks over their suspected links to the opposition.
Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation for more than a quarter-century with an iron fist, has faced months of massive protests. The rallies were triggered by Lukashenko’s re-election to a sixth term in an August vote that the opposition and election observers said was rigged.
The Belarusian authorities have unleashed a harsh crackdown on protests demanding the president’s resignation. More than 34,000 people have been detained in Belarus, and many of them said they were brutally beaten behind bars.
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