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Crisis in Belarus

Media demand Belarusian authorities release Russian journalists

According to earlier reports, Daily Storm and Meduza journalists and defense correspondent Semyon Pegov were detained on Sunday when the police were dispersing protests in Minsk

© Natalya Fedosenko/TASS

MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Representatives of the Russian mass media have called on the Belarusian authorities to release Russian journalists who were detained when they were doing their job to cover Sunday’s presidential election in that country.

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"We, representatives of the Russian mass media, demand that the Belarusian authorities provide complete and exhaustive information about these journalists, render medical assistance in case they need it and give access to them for diplomats from the Russian embassy in Minsk. We also insist on their immediate release," Russia’s Vedomosti, Kommersant and RBC dailies said in a joint statement.

According to earlier reports, Daily Storm and Meduza journalists and defense correspondent Semyon Pegov were detained on Sunday when the police were dispersing protests in Minsk. A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Belarus told TASS that Pegov is being kept at Minsk’s main police department.

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