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Several foreign journalists detained in Minsk

Among those detained are journalists from France24 television channel, a correspondent from Ukraine’s Novoye Vremya and reporters from Radio Liberty’s Belarusian desk

MINSK, March 24. /TASS/. Several journalists, including from foreign mass media, have been detained by the police in Belarus’ capital city Minsk, as follows from an online Facebook broadcast.

Among those detained are journalists from France24 television channel, a correspondent from Ukraine’s Novoye Vremya (New Time) and reporters from Radio Liberty’s Belarusian desk.

According to a police officer, the journalists were detained to "clarify circumstance" and "establish identity."

At the moment of detention, the journalists were at the Minsk office of the Green Party which conducted a campaign to raise assistance to those detained in Minsk on March 15 after a rally in protest against an unpopular labor law.

Alexander Lastivsky, a spokesman for the Minsk police, told TASS the journalists will be released soon.

Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko signed a law, dubbed in the press as the "law against social parasites," in April 2015. The law requires all those who work less than 183 days a year to pay a levy of more than 200 U.S. dollars for "lost taxes" to help fund welfare policies. The law sparked off mass protests across the country.

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