Police of the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland detained the RT France film crew of two correspondents for their alleged illegal presence in the emergency zone on the border with Belarus.
“Two men were detained by the police this morning in the area of the town of Usnazh-Gurny. They stated that they are journalists of the RT France TV channel”, Tomasz Krupa, spokesman for the Podlaska police, told TASS.
According to him, the correspondents were in the “zone covered by the state of emergency, without permission.” Krupa added that the men were detained and taken to the police station. Later, the case will be brought to court as a matter of urgency.
It is noted that both detained correspondents are French citizens. Ksenia Fedorova, editor-in-chief of RT France, confirmed the information about the detention of journalists.
“Our film crew was detained at the Polish-Belarusian border. RT France correspondent David Kalifa and operator Jordi Demory managed to go live on the phone and say that the Polish police are behaving “extremely unfriendly,” Fedorova wrote on her Telegram channel.
She stressed that RT France notified the French Embassy in Warsaw, which, for its part, also contacted the Polish authorities. In addition, Fedorova expressed the hope that the detention of the employees “has nothing to do with the fact that they represent the RT channel”.