Four young Latvians who were detained in Belarus for possession of marijuana have been released, but only after making an appearance on Belarusian state TV in which they praised the authorities.
The four youngsters were on their way to a music festival when they were detained at the border on drugs charges. Their release was finally negotiated by Latvia’s foreign ministry affairs after a Belarusian investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing. However, they were only freed after appearing on a local news channel where they gave a positive account of their experience.
“We were treated nicely, we have no complaints,” one of the detainees, Daniels Cirsis, said in the broadcast.
Cirsis’s mother, Violeta, said: “Belarus protects its border, its country and its people. Thank God they solved this situation so quickly (…) and correctly," Latvian state broadcaster LSM reported.
Jānis Sārts, the head of NATO’s Strategic Communication Center of Excellence, dismissed the matter as a propaganda stunt orchestrated by Minsk.
“We cannot say whether there were drugs at all,” LSM quoted him as saying. “It was a propaganda operation aimed at communicating with the Belarusian and Russian population, and secondarily with the Russian-speaking population in Latvia. They were trying to say that they are much more human, much nicer than they are told about in Latvia.”
Sārts went on to say that traveling to Belarus and Russia involves a variety of risks including being recruited by the intelligence services or being taken prisoner to be used as a pawn in prisoner-swap negotiations.
“They try to find the person they catch, build a case, often to the point of execution, and then use that person as a tool to get them to trade for the person they value,” he added.
Latvia’s foreign ministry has advised its citizens against traveling to Belarus, warning that, “Latvian nationals may be subject to various provocations by the [security] services, and people may be wrongly accused of wrongdoing and detained.”
“We were treated nicely, we have no complaints,” one of the detainees, Daniels Cirsis, said in the broadcast.
Cirsis’s mother, Violeta, said: “Belarus protects its border, its country and its people. Thank God they solved this situation so quickly (…) and correctly," Latvian state broadcaster LSM reported.
Jānis Sārts, the head of NATO’s Strategic Communication Center of Excellence, dismissed the matter as a propaganda stunt orchestrated by Minsk.
“We cannot say whether there were drugs at all,” LSM quoted him as saying. “It was a propaganda operation aimed at communicating with the Belarusian and Russian population, and secondarily with the Russian-speaking population in Latvia. They were trying to say that they are much more human, much nicer than they are told about in Latvia.”
Sārts went on to say that traveling to Belarus and Russia involves a variety of risks including being recruited by the intelligence services or being taken prisoner to be used as a pawn in prisoner-swap negotiations.
“They try to find the person they catch, build a case, often to the point of execution, and then use that person as a tool to get them to trade for the person they value,” he added.
Latvia’s foreign ministry has advised its citizens against traveling to Belarus, warning that, “Latvian nationals may be subject to various provocations by the [security] services, and people may be wrongly accused of wrongdoing and detained.”
Source: LSM
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