‘Teddy Bear Bombing’ Causes New Arrests

Iryna Lojka, a girlfriend of Siarhiej Basharymau — the real estate agent from Minsk who was the one to work with teddy bear drop organizers from Swedish PR agency Studio Total — says he is held in remand prison of the Committee for State Security (KGB) and — same as photographer Anton Surapin — accused of assistance to illegally cross state’s boarder, RFE/RL reports.

She tells she was held on July 6 (the plush bears were dropped on July 4) and interrogated. After being left to spend a night in a prison cell, she was released.

Ms. Lojka also says she knew nothing about the incident before the interrogation, but from the investigator’s questions she learned her boyfriend Siarhiej Basharymau was also detained by the KGB.

Siarhiej Basharymau, 28, is a professional real estate broker. Per Cromwell, the organizer of bear drop action, contacted Mr. Basharymau and booked a room through him. However, Swedes never used the apartments limiting their contact with the realtor to just sending a refusal SMS.

Ms. Lojka and Mr. Basharymaus’s mother say they have handled several parcels for imprisoned realtor and already received several letters from him where he writes he is doing well and conditions are satisfactory.

Ms. Lojka also informs they contacted journalists only recently, after Mr. Basharymau had spent 10 days in jail, as they claims to be “far from policy”, did nothing illegal and hoped the matter would be settled soon.

Mr. Basharymau became the second person to be held in the KGB remand prison and accused of assistance to illegally cross state’s boarder.

Russian newspaper Kommersant shares the opinion the arrests are the reaction of high military officials to the fact the light aircraft from Sweden managed to cross Belarus’ border twice, drop 1,000 teddy bears over Minsk and remain unnoticed which showed complete inefficiency of Belarus’ air defence system. This also may be done to distract attention from the fact of audacious solidarity action.

According to Kommersant, Belarusian human rights defenders call the situation “legal nonsense” as Belarusian military forces still deny the fact the incident with Swedish plane actually tool place. However, the criminal investigation on this hitherto unproven fact is underway.

Hary Pahaniajla, the chief of Belarus Helsinki Committee’s law service says the situation is quite common for Belarus where everything “is regulated by top authorities’ will, but not by the law”.

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