By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Video Song
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - CJR - PFT
UN GATE, May 30 – Right after dissident blogger Pratasevich was grabbed off a Ryan Air flight forced to land in Belarus, many including the US spoke.
But for more than a full day, nothing from Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General who rarely takes questions and even had the Press which asked him about the mass killings in Cameroon thrown out of the UN. Alert here; new Belarus Blues song here.
Now on May 30, The chief editor of a popular Belarusian news site has been detained on Sunday and his home searched. Aliaksei Shota, editor of Hrodna.life, was detained with police officers claiming he was being investigated on suspicion of extremism. His site focuses on Grodno, Belarus’s fifth-largest city. Authorities said Shota “posted information products that were duly recognized as extremist.”
Officers confiscated computer hard drives from his home. Shota had worked with with Belarus's most popular internet portal Tut.by, before it was shut down by the government this month after 15 employees were arrested. From Guterres? Silence - he wants all P5 support for a second term.
On May 28, Guterres' UN Press Briefing Room hosted a press conference, from which Inner City Press was banned, in which the grabbing of Pratasevich was called fake news, in response to questions from state media.
Inner City Press has asked incoming UNSC president for June Estonia for access - and it and the Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) will report on all results.
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