Фото: Игорь Кулей.
Journalist Ihar Kuley of the Belarusian Investigative Center shared a story on his Facebook blog about an incident that happened to him today in Warsaw — an unknown woman was following him and a group of Belarusians. She was taking photos and fled after an attempt was made to call the police.
Kuley brought his daughter to a theatre group for Belarusians in the area of Constitution Square in Warsaw. The organizers were late, and parents with their children gathered in front of the door. At that moment, they noticed an unknown woman standing several meters away and secretly photographing those who had arrived with her phone.
“I started watching. Average height, dressed in muted colors, a hood pulled over her head. In her left hand she had a paper bag with some kind of cookies, which she ate from time to time. In her right hand was a phone, which she repeatedly pointed in our direction. And when another adult with a child approached, even from a distance, she would casually aim the device in their direction as well. She knew very well how to take covert photos: she held the camera at waist level, then raised it to her eyes to check whether the shot had worked. Sometimes she pretended to be filming video around her,” the journalist said.
He tried to take a selfie so that the woman would appear in the frame, but she abruptly turned away and hid her face. After that, she moved farther away from them but continued to point the camera toward new Belarusians arriving at the door with children.
“I no longer had any doubts that these were deliberate actions. I approached her and directly asked in Polish what was going on. She replied without an accent: ‘Nothing, just taking family photos,’ and tried to leave. At the same time, I tried to block her path without breaking the law and to call law enforcement by phone. When she heard that I had reached the police number, she ran across a four-lane road and fled,” Ihar Kuley described.
He suggests that such photos could be taken on behalf of Belarusian security services to blackmail Belarusians living in Warsaw.
“I urge colleagues in Warsaw to be as vigilant as possible. It is pure chance that this time the surveillance was noticed. If the doors to the class had been open, everyone would have gone inside, and no one would have paid attention to some woman with cookies and a phone,” Kuley concluded.