All news

Belarus interior minister demands reporters be freed first from detention centers

According to Yuri Karayev, he "is always against any violence against reporters"

MINSK, August 14. /TASS/. Belarusian Interior Minister Yuri Karayev has demanded that journalists covering protests in the country who were detained and placed in temporary detention centers be released ahead of everyone else.

"My first instruction is that you deal with journalists who were put in temporary detention centers and perpetrator isolation centers first and release them first," ONT TV broadcast Karayev’s speech live.

According to him, he "is always against any violence against reporters." He also underlined that detained peaceful civilians should be also let go as soon as possible and it is already being done. "I am not a bloodthirsty person, I don’t want any violence. They are all our citizens. Everyone has families and children," he said.

On Wednesday, Karayev instructed his subordinates to "not touch" reporters at mass protests "apart from cases where they stand between perpetrators and public order enforcers."

On August 9, Belarus held the presidential election. Preliminary results show incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko securing his reelection with 80.08% of the votes, while his biggest rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya received 10.09% of the ballots cast. The other three candidates failed to get more than two percent each. After exit poll results were revealed late on August 9, many cities and towns across the country saw mass protests that in some cases turned into clashes with the police. Since Sunday, people have been joining demonstrators in the evening daily, while the national interior ministry said 6,000 had been detained, dozens of police officers and protesters were injured. Tikhanovskaya herself fled the country and has been in Lithuania since Tuesday.