29 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Reporters Aleksandr Lomashkin and Ales Asiptsu were arrested in separate incidents on Thursday, 24 March. Both were detained on the eve of “Freedom Day”, an unofficial holiday traditionally celebrated by members of the opposition. Lomashkin is a Russian journalist who worked in Belarus and founded the human rights website Svoboda. He was forced to get off a train at the Belarusian border and was searched by two officers who claimed that they were looking for drugs. He was arrested for “insulting an officer” and imprisoned for three days. Asipstu is an independent Belarusian journalist who was also arrested for allegedly “urinating in a public place.”
28 Mar 11 | News and features
Belarusian people are living under “an iron fist in an iron glove,” said Sir Tom Stoppard on the Radio 4 Today programme, after presenting a special commendation to prisoners of conscience in Belarus at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards 2011
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24 Mar 11 | Awards, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
The 11th annual Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, sponsored by SAGE, were presented tonight (24 March) at a ceremony in London hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby
09 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
The families of political prisoners detained in Belarus after the 19 December election have instructed a London law firm to launch civil proceedings against the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko.
This is the first time that a serving president has faced a private prosecution for torture in a UK Court.
If the case is successful, any financial assets held by Lukashenko in Britain, or abroad, may be frozen to provide compensation.
London firm H20 Law will represent Free Belarus Now, a coalition of friends, families and supporters, of the victims of political repression in Belarus.
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