Three days passed after the arrest of the journalist of “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus” Gennady Mozheiko, but the circumstances of the incident all this time were unclear. There was no official information about Mozheiko’s detention. Only in the evening of October 4, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus confirmed this fact.
Detention after a note about a shootout in Minsk
The Belarusian journalist was detained on October 1. Earlier it was reported that at that time he was in Moscow on personal matters. But, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the arrest took place on the territory of Belarus. The press service of the department explains this as follows: in Russia, Gennady Mozheiko tried to leave for a third country, but Russian law enforcement agencies refused him to leave. Taking into account their decision on the undesirability of staying on the territory of the Russian Federation, Mozheiko was ordered to leave Russia, thus he again entered the territory of Belarus, where he was detained.
Dozens of people were detained for comments on social networks about the death of a KGB officer in Belarus
The journalist was detained in the framework of a criminal case, which was initiated under Articles 130 (“incitement to racial, national, religious or other social hatred”) and 369 (“insulting a representative of the authorities”) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. And Mozheiko was detained after the newspaper published under his name a small note about the death of an employee of the IT company EPAM Andrei Zeltser, who shot a KGB officer and himself died in a shootout during a search in his Minsk apartment on September 28.
In the publication, a classmate of the deceased IT specialist spoke positively about him. The note existed on the website of “KP in Belarus” for several minutes, then it was deleted. And on the morning of September 29, the site was blocked. The Belarusian Ministry of Information explained this by the fact that a publication was posted on the Internet resource kp.by, “which contains information that contributes to the formation of sources of threats to national security, consisting in artificially escalating tension and confrontation in society, between society and the state.”
The editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vladimir Sungorkin, called the incident “arbitrary” and “inadequate reaction” on Radio KP. To clarify the situation, “KP” sent its representative to Minsk – the head of the department of politics Valentina Alfimov. But, as DW noted, “there is literally a grain of information.” According to the latest information, Gennady Mozheiko is in a pre-trial detention center on Akrestsin Street in Minsk. His apartment in Minsk was searched for many hours.
With the assistance of the publication, legal defense was organized for the journalist. Towards the evening of October 4, it became known that the lawyer had finally managed to meet with him. According to “KP”, the journalist “feels good”, in the presence of a lawyer Gennady Mozheiko was interrogated as a suspect.
Reaction in Russia to the detention of a Belarusian correspondent
In Russia, the detention of Gennady Mozheiko attracted a lot of attention from the media and officials. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Vladimir Putin knew about what happened to Mozheiko. According to him, since we are talking about a citizen of Belarus, the Russian authorities cannot make inquiries about him through diplomatic channels and protect his interests. Earlier, Russia expressed its disagreement with the blocking of the site of “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus”. “We expect the lifting of these restrictions and the provision of free work of our respected publication on the territory of Belarus, our allied state,” the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that Moscow would like to resolve the situation through dialogue, but Minsk has not yet heard the Russian side.
The Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation called on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release Mozheiko. “The actions of the Belarusian authorities look like purposeful pressure on the Russian media on the territory of the union state,” the HRC said in a statement. “The professional activity of a journalist cannot be grounds for persecution.” The Union of Journalists of Russia also insists on the immediate release of the KP employee.
How the incident could affect the Belarusian-Russian relations
Union State Secretary of State Dmitry Mezentsev in an interview with “KP” reacted more restrainedly to the arrest of the journalist: “There is no need to add fuel to the fire” and “upset good-neighborly relations” with one episode, which must be thoroughly investigated. “
In turn, Dmitry Bolkunets, a Belarusian political scientist who until recently lived in Moscow, believes that Russian foreign policy of ignoring large-scale human rights violations and hundreds of political prisoners in Belarusian prisons no longer contributes to the rapprochement of the two countries, since “Russia’s reputation in Belarus has been tarnished.” And if the detention of the journalist of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” caused a violent reaction in Russia, then this, according to the expert, is connected only with the scale of the publication. Komsomolskaya Pravda, they say, is Vladimir Putin’s favorite newspaper, and its editor-in-chief, Vladimir Sungorkin, is highly respected in the Kremlin, “Bolkunets said in an interview with DW.
The attacks of the Belarusian authorities on “KP” have been going on since 2020. After August 2020, this publication, like many other Belarusian non-state media, could not be printed and distributed in Belarus. As a result, Komsomolskaya Pravda was printed in Russia and sold through separate Belarusian stores. “Lukashenka was offended by the impartial statements of the editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda during the elections. This insult remained. The Belarusian authorities are trying to destroy the work of Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus, they want to crush it for themselves,” the political scientist is sure. And the Russian side has its hands tied. “The Kremlin cannot act boldly now, because the signing of road maps is at stake, otherwise the ally will be offended and refuse to sign anything,” Bolkunets said.
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