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RT France reporters detained at Polish-Belarusian border — Polish police

It was reported that the correspondent and the cameraman went on the air over the phone and said that the Polish police were behaving "extremely unfriendly"

WARSAW, November 15. /TASS/. Two RT France correspondents have been detained in Poland near the border with Belarus for working in the emergency situation zone without a permit, Tomasz Krupa, spokesman for Poland’s Podlaskie regional police department, told TASS on Monday. 

"Two men were detained by the police near the city of Usnarz Gorny this morning. They said they were journalists with the RT France television channel," he said.

According to the police spokesman, both men are French nationals. "They were in the emergency situation zone but had no permit. They had equipment and said they were shooting video footage," Krupa said. "The correspondents were detained and taken to a police station. The case will be referred to court urgently." It will be heard by a court in the city of Sokolka. The men are facing arrest or a fine.

RT France editor-in-chief, Ksenia Fyodorova, confirmed reports about the detention of a film crew. "Our film crew was detained at the Polish-Belarusian border," she wrote on her Telegram channel. According to Fyodorova, the correspondent and the cameraman went on the air over the phone and said that the Polish police were behaving "extremely unfriendly." The last word that was heard from them, in her words, was "handcuffs" and the contact with them was lost.

Amid the migration crisis, Poland has imposed a state of emergency in regions bordering Belarus. No one, including journalists, is allowed to enter these regions. Polish border guards have stopped more than 33,000 illegal border crossings from Belarus this year, an increase of 370 times over the 2020 level. The situation deteriorated on November 8, when several thousand migrants approached the Polish border. From time to time they try to break through the fences and cross into Poland.

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