Yes, political arrests are so common in Belarus in the run up to the Presidential election, that it is becoming necessary to put together a daily summary of just who has been arrested in the last 24 hours.
Belarusan American Blog and br23 blog both report the arrest of a Ukrainian journalist, while she was covering an election rally in Minsk.
Unfortunately for the authorities, she was broadcasting live in Ukraine at the time of the arrest, and the whole incident can be heard on this mp3 recording including, apparently, 40 seconds of screams as she is dragged away.
(I’m on a soundcardless PC at the moment, so haven’t heard the recording yet).
To judge the scale of harrasment of foreign – particularly Ukrainian journalists – you might want to take a look at this RFE/RL report from last week, which says the Ukrainian government has demanded to know why 6 journalists were thrown out of Belarus.
hi…
just wondering….why aren’t there any thing here about the hazing in the Russian army….??
I guess, like most bloggers, I write about whatever stories (a) happen to grab my attention and (b) I feel I have something to say about.
In this case, although it is an important story, I didn’t really feel that I had anything particularly useful to say that others (for example, Sean: http://seansrusskiiblog.blogspot.com/) hadn’t already said better.