Editor-in-chief of Russian information agency “Freedom” detained in Belarus
Alyaksandr Lashmankin was heading for Minsk on a Chelyabinsk-Brest train on the night of March 24.
The Belarusian police have made him get off his train at Orsha station. It is the first station after the Russian border.
The colleagues of the detained have informed an RSN reporter that he spent the night at the station police department. He has not been accused of anything. The Russian journalist’s cell phone has not been confiscated and he can answer phone calls.
The Russian consul on duty in Minsk has already been informed about the incident and is trying to study its details.
It has become known that Alyaksandr Lashmankin is officially accredited in Minsk as a foreign journalist, informs Charter-97.
According to human rights activists, he is being delivered to court to stand trial for hooliganism. However, Lashmankin has managed to send an SMS informing that it may be connected with drugs. Some policeman informed representatives of the International Observation Mission about the same thing at night, reports BelaPAN.
