Editor-in-chief of Russian Svoboda news agency detained in Belarus

• 24.03.2011, 2:49

Alexander Lashmankin was travelling to Minsk by Chelyabinsk-Minsk train on March 24.

Officer of the Belarusian Interior Ministry ordered him to get off the train in Orsha, the first station after the Belarusian border.

As a correspondent of Russian News Service learned from the detainee’s colleagues, he was left in a a line internal affairs department at the station for the night. He has not been presented any charges. The Belarusian policemen refused to tell him the reasons for the detention. They did not seize the journalist’s mobile phone, he can answer calls.

A consul on duty at the Russian Embassy in Minsk has already been informed about the incident. He is trying to clear up the situation.

As it became known, Alexander Lamashkin has an official accreditation in the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign journalist.

According to the latest information, the term of detention for Alexander Lamashkin has been extended to 72 hours with an official explanation “for clarifying the details”. The detained is a journalist and a famous human rights activist in Samara.