You're reading: Teddy bear photo session journalists to stand trial in Minsk

Minsk - Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus newspaper journalist Irina Kozlik and Nasha Niva newspaper photographer Yulia Doroshkevich, who were detained in Wednesday, will go on trial in Minsk. 

“Today the court of Minsk’s Sovetsky district will hear the administrative case opened against Kozlik and Doroshkevich, which were detained during a picket in Minsk,” a spokesman for the Belarusian Association of Journalists told Interfax on Thursday.

The journalists were arrested while holding a teddy bear photo session outside the Arts Palace in central Minsk.

Kozlik and Doroshkevich were accused of staging an illegal picket and a protocol of administrative offences was compiled against them. They will face a fine of up to three million Belarusian rubles or an administrative jail term if found guilty.

Law enforcement agencies have been unavailable for comment.

Several Belarusian journalists have participated in different online events and have had their photos taken with teddy bears since July, thus demonstrating their support of journalist Anton Suryapin, who was detained by the Belarusian State Security Committee after publishing photos of teddy bears dropped by Swedish pilots over Minsk on his website at the beginning of July.

The Belarusian media reported on July 4 that a lightweight civilian airplane operated by Swedish citizens crossed the Belarusian airspace from Lithuania and dropped teddy bears with labels calling for freedom of speech in Belarus over Minsk and Ivenets, a town in the Minsk region.