Impossible to find out why your line was tapped?

The recording of Zmitser Bandarenka’s phone talks were used to prove his guilt. Zmitser’s wife and human rights activists think that it was illegal to tap the line of Andrei Sannikau’s representative.

However, not only Zmitser Bandarenka’s line was tapped during the presidential election campaign. Volha, Uladzimir Nyaklyayau’s wife, sent a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the fact that her line had been tapped. She did it after she had watched the blockbuster “Iron upon the Glass” on the BT.

Volha Nyaklyayeva: “I asked why my line had been tapped and why it had been used in that TV programme. Nobody has answered my question. They only say that the investigation is in process and that they have some right to do it”.

In fact, amendments to the law “On investigative work” were made some time ago. They allow the police to tap lines without the Prosecutor’s permission.
However, Ales Byalyatski, chairperson of the unregistered human rights centre “Vyasna”, thinks that this argument cannot be applied to presidential candidates and their relatives.

Ales Byalyatski: “There were no (and there are no) reasons to think that the political competition that appeared in the pre-election period in 2010 had some signs that could characterize it as antistate or unconstitutional. They only thing that KGB was trying to do was protecting President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s interests as his executive agency”.

At the same time, the Criminal Code of Practice says that the police are allowed to tap lines only if they investigate heinous crimes. Unlike the law “On investigative work”, it still allows personal life and privacy of correspondence.