MINSK, August 11. /TASS/. Journalists working in Belarus without accreditation may face a ten-year entry ban, Alexei Begun, chief of the Belarusian Interior Ministry’s Citizenship and Migration Department, told TASS on Tuesday.
"A ten-year entry ban is typically imposed in such cases," he said, adding that a five-year ban was imposed in most of the cases with Russian journalists.
On Sunday, Belarus held its sixth presidential election since declaring independence in 1991. According to the country’s Central Election Commission, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won 80.08% of votes. His closest rival, housewife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, scored 10.09% of votes. The other three candidates managed to win less than two percent each.
On August 9, Vasily Polonsky and Vladimir Romensky, reporters of the Russian television channel Dozhd, and their cameraman Nikolai Antipov were detained in Minsk when covering the Belarusian election. According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, they had no accreditation. Meanwhile, Dozhd Editor-in-Chief Tikhon Dzyadko told TASS documents for accreditation had been submitted back on June 15. The journalists were deported from Belarus overnight to Monday.
It was reported on Monday that Daily Storm and Meduza journalists and defense correspondent Semyon Pegov had been detained on Sunday when the police were dispersing protests in Minsk. Apart from that, Rossiya Segodnya press photographer Ilya Pitalev was also detained. They will be deported from Belarus too.