REPORTER: Amos Roberts
What do you do if you care about human rights and you live near a country whose President has been dubbed Europe's last dictator? At home in Sweden, people around you take freedom of speech for granted. But in Belarus, people who oppose the Soviet-style regime are beaten up and thrown into prison.
PER CROMWELL, STUDIO TOTAL: Belarus is very close to Sweden. The situation in Belarus is completely hopeless. Not that much people talk about the situation in Belarus - people tend to be more interested speaking about Kim Kardashian than the situation in Belarus. We thought we should do something about it. It's just too close and too bad to leave left alone.
Advertising man Per Cromwell did some very Scandinavian-style brainstorming trying to figure out what to do.
PER CROMWELL: You get a bit dizzy and without the side-effects of alcohol. So I think this is a very good replacement of alcohol, actually - have a long, hot summer bath.
REPORTER: You think that's also why you come out with ideas that might be a bit nutty?
PER CROMWELL: Ah, that might have something to do with it, yeah. Yeah.
Cromwell is the co-founder of Studio Total, an advertising agency with a reputation for being provocative and cheeky.
COMMERCIAL: This is AISOS, the Austrian International School of Sex. The courses are not just like theory, like sexual theory. It's very - this is their words - hands-on.
At the start of this year, Studio Total was commissioned to draw attention to Austria's declining birth rate. They fooled the media into thinking a sex school was about to open, before revealing it was all a hoax.
PER CROMWELL: Our philosophy is that the future belongs to the ones who tell the best stories. We are an ad agency that don't do ads.
But Per Cromwell knows that being provocative in Belarus can have serious consequences. In February, a group of self-styled creative hooligans used stuffed toys to protest laws banning demonstrations in Belarus. The toys were taken away by police, as was the stunt's ringleader, Pavel Vinogradov. Suddenly it was obvious what Sweden's own creative hooligans needed to do.
PER CROMWELL: The best way would be to buy an aeroplane... Cross the border illegally... And drop teddy bears over a dictator. After a while, that became kind of obvious that that was the best thing we could do.
NEWS REPORT (Translation): Apparently, on 4 July a Swedish pilot flying a small plane from Lithuania bombed the town of Ivyanets, 70km from Minsk, dropping teddy bears with pro-democracy slogans.
A mysterious story centred on an UFO. Many eyewitnesses have seen a small plane dropping stuffed toys.
Well, it would seem that you don't have to go down to the woods in Belarus if you are looking for a big surprise - the teddy bears are literally parachuting in from the skies.
More of the fallout from the teddy-bear drop later. But how did just four Swedes pull off such a daring and dangerous stunt? It took almost two years for the pranksters to prepare. They bought this plane, and learned to fly it. Studio Total co-founder Tomas Mazetti trained to be the pilot.
TOMAS MAZETTI, STUDIO TOTAL: I had to lose 8kg.
His partner and co-pilot, Hannah Lina Frey, also took flying lessons.
HANNAH LINA FREY: Well, there was like 10 minutes or so where we were a bit shaky.
TOMAS MAZETTI: You were shaky. I wasn't shaky.
HANNAH LINA FREY: You were shaky!
Looking after communication and codes was Linda Karlsson, who also helped prepare and train an army of teddy bears.
LINDA KARLSSON: It's the first time in history that teddy bears have defeated generals.
The fourth and final member of the squad was Per Cromwell, who had a getaway car in case they were forced to land - and filmed them from below.
PER CROMWELL: Then, all of a sudden, I heard the noise of a small aeroplane, and I remember thinking that, "Oh, boy, he's really flying low!"
REPORTER: And you didn't originally intend to fly the plane yourselves, did you?
HANNAH LINA FREY: We asked some pilots if they were prepared to do it, and...
TOMAS MAZETTI: Those were the most - the pilots known to be really crazy, like "Ask him, he'll do anything." Sorry, Hannah.
HANNAH LINA FREY: And no, they didn't want to.
TOMAS MAZETTI: They called us crazy. They had air defence, one of Europe's strongest.
REPORTER: That's what they told you?
TOMAS MAZETTI: Yeah. We laughed. "Ha ha ha," we said.
They tried to minimise the risk by flying very early in the morning on the Fourth of July - the day before was Belarussian Independence Day, marked with a huge military parade. The Swedes were hoping that, with all the vodka being drunk that night, those charged with protecting the border would have their guard down in the morning.
PER CROMWELL: We kind of counted on that - the chain of command would be a little bit out of order, with generals being a little bit hung-over.
Tomas and Hannah flew low to avoid radar detection. They knew it could be a matter of life and death. Just a few days earlier, they'd learned that in 1995, two American hot-air balloonists had been shot down over Belarus by a helicopter gunship.
TOMAS MAZETTI: One part of this is that we needed to take a risk. We needed to risk something. We risked money, of course - we used a lot of money on this. We used our time. But also to really show that we meant this was something serious. We didn't let anyone else take that risk for us.
After dropping bears over the village of Ivyanets, Tomas and Hannah continued to the outskirts of Minsk, and left the rest of their payload - almost 800 bears in total. They were in Belarussian airspace for less than 90 minutes and as far as the authorities were concerned, they'd never been there at all.
AUTHORITIES (Translation): The army command claims there was no plane and thjat the video is faked enemy propaganda.
“Studying the photo and video materials, the experts discovered elements of crude video fakery testifying to the provocative nature of the data.”
But within a few hours of the flight, the first pictures of the subversive teddies were posted online.
ANTON SURYAPIN, STUDENT (Translation): I was walking with my friends and got a message, my girlfriend was saying that there were teddy bears. She took photos and sent them to me. I published them on the website I edit and that was it. That was the first piece of evidence coming from Belarus confirming that it really did happen.
20-year-old journalism student Anton Suryapin knew the risk he was taking. Nine days later, the KGB knocked on his door.
ANTON SURYAPIN (Translation): They came to do a search, they locked me up at the KGB detention centre and I spent a month and four days in the KGB prison.
Suryapin was charged with being an accessory to the Swedes' illegal border crossing - in other words, blamed for something the government said had never happened. In August, journalists in Minsk campaigned for Suryapin's release, photographing themselves with one of the bears and posting the photos on the internet.
YULIA DOROSHKEVICH (Translation): Any one of us could have been in Suryapin’s place. It is clear that this 20-year-old kid who didn’t create the photos but got them from somewhere is being made a scapegoat because the authorities yawned so wide they missed the bears.
Things then got even sillier. Yulia Doroshkevich was arrested when she was photographing Russian journalist Irina Kozlik. They were jailed overnight, and fined about $400 each. The charge was picketing by means of photography. Yulia says the authorities were desperately improvising.
YULIA DOROSHKEVICH (Translation): It was a novel situation and they were at a loss. They were not ready, they did not know how to react, so this absurdist theatre began where crowds of adults from the special forces were hunting tiny stuffed bears, presenting real teenagers with search warrants, arresting journalists for taking photos with toys. They were at a loss.
PRESIDENT ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO (Translation): Our state boarder should not be crossed with impunity. Suppress any intrusion by every means possible, including armed response.
President Alexander Lukashenko finally admitted the teddy bears were real after three weeks of denials.
NEWSREADER: Now, Belarus has fired two of its military top brass over the failure to stop an invasion of Swedish parachuting teddy bears. To explain why the fur is flying in Minsk...
NEWSREADER (Translation): Lukashenko sacked the Border Committee Head and the Air Defence Chief, major-generals Igor Rachkovsky and Dmitry Pakhmelkin.
Every war has casualties - even one waged against stuffed toys. Also in President Lukashenko's line of fire - the Swedish government.
SWEDISH NEWSREADER (Translation): We have been advised that the regime in Minsk has expelled all Swedish diplomats.
NEWSREADER: Belarus has recalled its ambassador to Sweden and is pulling out its entire embassy staff because of teddy bears!
REPORTER: What did you think of the way Lukashenko reacted?
PER CROMWELL: People are afraid of him, but when he reacts - overreacts, silly people tend to laugh at him and don't take him seriously. When that happens, then a dictator really is in big trouble - when people no longer really fear him, that they think that he's ridiculous.
INTERROGATOR (Translation): Who helped you? Who payed you and how much? Get him!
Around the world, people responded to the crackdown in Belarus with humour and mockery. Toy protests were staged outside Belarussian embassies throughout Europe.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: They are scared of bears.
POLICEMAN: That's a scary bear!
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: I know.
POLICEMAN: What's his name?
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: Teddy.
So what did the man who inspired the Swedish action, Pavel Vinogradov, think of it?
PAVEL VINOGRADOV (Translation): the idea of teddy bears jumping from a plane is certainly a great one, a surprising one. Pity I didn’t think of it, but I don’t have the opportunity or the resources to do it. All in all, it is good the Swedes supported us in that way.
Vinogradov has been jailed six times this year, and last month he was back in court. His latest arrest was thanks to a government crackdown in the run-up to parliamentary elections. Vinogradov belongs to a group of activists called Zmena - and this is how they launched the campaign of their own candidate. But it was just a front - they used the campaign as legal cover for their protests. Four days before the vote, police decided their 'Get Out of Jail Free' card had run out.
Today, four of Zmena's activists are on trial, but the atmosphere in court is surprisingly up-beat.
REPORTER: This is very serious, but you were smiling a lot in there.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: (Translation): Well, I think that…. What do you mean by serious? Serious. The purges of 1937 were serious. That was serious, people got shot and now the maximum I can get is 25 days behind bars. It’s the seventh time actually, I’m used to it. Why should I be upset? Nothing that terrible is going on.
I ask Pavel how he came up with the idea of using stuffed toys in protests.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: (Translation): Fun and laughter kill fear – I realised that long ago and it really works. And secondly, I am provoking the regime into reacting unreasonably and I want them to look absurd. So in the end, if Lukashenko with all his army and all the police that he has is fighting against toys, he is looking ludicrous. That is what I wanted to achieve.
OFFICIAL (Translation): Tell me what is going on?
ILYA (Translation): He does not understand.
OFFICIAL (Translation): This man does.
GUARD (Translation): Translate for him that filming is forbidden.
Anything critical of the government is forbidden in Belarus.
OFFICIAL (Translation): I forbid you to film anything. Therefore please leave the premises.
ILYA (Translation): We were told we could film after the verdict.
OFFICIAL (Translation): You don’t film.
It's why the Swedes sent their teddy-bear paratroopers in the first place - as moral support for Belarussians brave enough to speak out.
TOMAS MAZETTI: We knew that people that were gonna side with us, that they would get punished for just telling this story as it was. That is what we were protesting in the first time. They are very brave and they are doing a very brave thing.
MARK DAVIS: Filmed and reported by Amos Roberts, who's with me now for a quick update. A bizarre story, Amos, bought serious one if you're on the receiving end of an angry government.
AMOS ROBERTS, VIDEO JOURNALIST: Yes, you heard there Anton Suryapin, the young student, spent over a month in a KGB prison. In fact, the real estate agent who'd rented a flat to one of the Swedes was also arrested - spent more than a month in prison, and both him and Anton, even though they're free now, have formally been charged with helping the Swedes in their illegal border crossing. That could get them up to seven years in prison.
MARK DAVIS: There's lots of gags about this story, but not much fun if you're being punched around by a fairly tough government.
AMOS ROBERTS: No.
MARK DAVIS: This is the offending item, what got them into trouble.
AMOS ROBERTS: Yes, I've got one of the teddy bears here. There were over 800 of these, all individually decorated by the Swedes. This one's got a bow tie and a nappy. Got their sign, and their parachute.
MARK DAVIS: It's got you into trouble too!
AMOS ROBERTS: It did get me into trouble. I was stopped at the airport when I was leaving Belarus, and they started to search my stuff - five Customs officials and a KGB guy. They discovered the teddy bear that I was carrying, which was wrapped up by dirty clothes. But they realised once they found that, that they had found something quite special.
MARK DAVIS: That's when the trouble started and your gear was...
AMOS ROBERTS: They took my camera, all my footage, my computer, my phone. A teddy bear like this looks very innocent but possibly the most subversive thing that could be found in your suitcase.
MARK DAVIS: So they're not just afraid of dangerous teddies, but of dangerous stories about teddies too?
AMOS ROBERTS: Anything to do with this story.
MARK DAVIS: You had to smuggle the tapes out?
AMOS ROBERTS: Yes, luckily put all the footage onto a spare hard drive, and that was smuggled out of the country and found its way here.
MARK DAVIS: We don't do that too often. It's normally in much more dangerous situations than this, but they clearly don't want this story to get out?
AMOS ROBERTS: No, it's embarrassing. Everybody is laughing except for the President, Alexander Lukashenko. He hates to be made an object of fun. Everyone has been watching this story on Russian television in Belarus, and they're laughing at him. That was precisely the point.
MARK DAVIS: They picked the right guy to lampoon.
AMOS ROBERTS: Indeed.
MARK DAVIS: You expecting to get back soon?
AMOS ROBERTS: I don't think so, although I had a meeting at the airport before I left from an official from the presidential administration. He said there'd be no problems at all. But I don't feel quite so safe. They invited the Swedes to come back. They wanted to investigate what they did. They invited them to come back and have a meeting at KGB headquarters. They politely declined and invited the President to come to Stockholm instead.
MARK DAVIS: Thank you for joining us. Thank you. There's links to some of the media coverage of Amos's time in Belarus, and his run-in with the authorities, on our website.
Reporter/Camera
AMOS ROBERTS
Producer
ASHLEY SMITH
Editors
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
SUE BELL
Fixer
ILYA KUZNIATSOU
Translations/Subtitling
ELENA MIKHAILIK
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN
What do you do if you care about human rights and you live near a country whose President has been dubbed Europe's last dictator? At home in Sweden, people around you take freedom of speech for granted. But in Belarus, people who oppose the Soviet-style regime are beaten up and thrown into prison.
PER CROMWELL, STUDIO TOTAL: Belarus is very close to Sweden. The situation in Belarus is completely hopeless. Not that much people talk about the situation in Belarus - people tend to be more interested speaking about Kim Kardashian than the situation in Belarus. We thought we should do something about it. It's just too close and too bad to leave left alone.
Advertising man Per Cromwell did some very Scandinavian-style brainstorming trying to figure out what to do.
PER CROMWELL: You get a bit dizzy and without the side-effects of alcohol. So I think this is a very good replacement of alcohol, actually - have a long, hot summer bath.
REPORTER: You think that's also why you come out with ideas that might be a bit nutty?
PER CROMWELL: Ah, that might have something to do with it, yeah. Yeah.
Cromwell is the co-founder of Studio Total, an advertising agency with a reputation for being provocative and cheeky.
COMMERCIAL: This is AISOS, the Austrian International School of Sex. The courses are not just like theory, like sexual theory. It's very - this is their words - hands-on.
At the start of this year, Studio Total was commissioned to draw attention to Austria's declining birth rate. They fooled the media into thinking a sex school was about to open, before revealing it was all a hoax.
PER CROMWELL: Our philosophy is that the future belongs to the ones who tell the best stories. We are an ad agency that don't do ads.
But Per Cromwell knows that being provocative in Belarus can have serious consequences. In February, a group of self-styled creative hooligans used stuffed toys to protest laws banning demonstrations in Belarus. The toys were taken away by police, as was the stunt's ringleader, Pavel Vinogradov. Suddenly it was obvious what Sweden's own creative hooligans needed to do.
PER CROMWELL: The best way would be to buy an aeroplane... Cross the border illegally... And drop teddy bears over a dictator. After a while, that became kind of obvious that that was the best thing we could do.
NEWS REPORT (Translation): Apparently, on 4 July a Swedish pilot flying a small plane from Lithuania bombed the town of Ivyanets, 70km from Minsk, dropping teddy bears with pro-democracy slogans.
A mysterious story centred on an UFO. Many eyewitnesses have seen a small plane dropping stuffed toys.
Well, it would seem that you don't have to go down to the woods in Belarus if you are looking for a big surprise - the teddy bears are literally parachuting in from the skies.
More of the fallout from the teddy-bear drop later. But how did just four Swedes pull off such a daring and dangerous stunt? It took almost two years for the pranksters to prepare. They bought this plane, and learned to fly it. Studio Total co-founder Tomas Mazetti trained to be the pilot.
TOMAS MAZETTI, STUDIO TOTAL: I had to lose 8kg.
His partner and co-pilot, Hannah Lina Frey, also took flying lessons.
HANNAH LINA FREY: Well, there was like 10 minutes or so where we were a bit shaky.
TOMAS MAZETTI: You were shaky. I wasn't shaky.
HANNAH LINA FREY: You were shaky!
Looking after communication and codes was Linda Karlsson, who also helped prepare and train an army of teddy bears.
LINDA KARLSSON: It's the first time in history that teddy bears have defeated generals.
The fourth and final member of the squad was Per Cromwell, who had a getaway car in case they were forced to land - and filmed them from below.
PER CROMWELL: Then, all of a sudden, I heard the noise of a small aeroplane, and I remember thinking that, "Oh, boy, he's really flying low!"
REPORTER: And you didn't originally intend to fly the plane yourselves, did you?
HANNAH LINA FREY: We asked some pilots if they were prepared to do it, and...
TOMAS MAZETTI: Those were the most - the pilots known to be really crazy, like "Ask him, he'll do anything." Sorry, Hannah.
HANNAH LINA FREY: And no, they didn't want to.
TOMAS MAZETTI: They called us crazy. They had air defence, one of Europe's strongest.
REPORTER: That's what they told you?
TOMAS MAZETTI: Yeah. We laughed. "Ha ha ha," we said.
They tried to minimise the risk by flying very early in the morning on the Fourth of July - the day before was Belarussian Independence Day, marked with a huge military parade. The Swedes were hoping that, with all the vodka being drunk that night, those charged with protecting the border would have their guard down in the morning.
PER CROMWELL: We kind of counted on that - the chain of command would be a little bit out of order, with generals being a little bit hung-over.
Tomas and Hannah flew low to avoid radar detection. They knew it could be a matter of life and death. Just a few days earlier, they'd learned that in 1995, two American hot-air balloonists had been shot down over Belarus by a helicopter gunship.
TOMAS MAZETTI: One part of this is that we needed to take a risk. We needed to risk something. We risked money, of course - we used a lot of money on this. We used our time. But also to really show that we meant this was something serious. We didn't let anyone else take that risk for us.
After dropping bears over the village of Ivyanets, Tomas and Hannah continued to the outskirts of Minsk, and left the rest of their payload - almost 800 bears in total. They were in Belarussian airspace for less than 90 minutes and as far as the authorities were concerned, they'd never been there at all.
AUTHORITIES (Translation): The army command claims there was no plane and thjat the video is faked enemy propaganda.
“Studying the photo and video materials, the experts discovered elements of crude video fakery testifying to the provocative nature of the data.”
But within a few hours of the flight, the first pictures of the subversive teddies were posted online.
ANTON SURYAPIN, STUDENT (Translation): I was walking with my friends and got a message, my girlfriend was saying that there were teddy bears. She took photos and sent them to me. I published them on the website I edit and that was it. That was the first piece of evidence coming from Belarus confirming that it really did happen.
20-year-old journalism student Anton Suryapin knew the risk he was taking. Nine days later, the KGB knocked on his door.
ANTON SURYAPIN (Translation): They came to do a search, they locked me up at the KGB detention centre and I spent a month and four days in the KGB prison.
Suryapin was charged with being an accessory to the Swedes' illegal border crossing - in other words, blamed for something the government said had never happened. In August, journalists in Minsk campaigned for Suryapin's release, photographing themselves with one of the bears and posting the photos on the internet.
YULIA DOROSHKEVICH (Translation): Any one of us could have been in Suryapin’s place. It is clear that this 20-year-old kid who didn’t create the photos but got them from somewhere is being made a scapegoat because the authorities yawned so wide they missed the bears.
Things then got even sillier. Yulia Doroshkevich was arrested when she was photographing Russian journalist Irina Kozlik. They were jailed overnight, and fined about $400 each. The charge was picketing by means of photography. Yulia says the authorities were desperately improvising.
YULIA DOROSHKEVICH (Translation): It was a novel situation and they were at a loss. They were not ready, they did not know how to react, so this absurdist theatre began where crowds of adults from the special forces were hunting tiny stuffed bears, presenting real teenagers with search warrants, arresting journalists for taking photos with toys. They were at a loss.
PRESIDENT ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO (Translation): Our state boarder should not be crossed with impunity. Suppress any intrusion by every means possible, including armed response.
President Alexander Lukashenko finally admitted the teddy bears were real after three weeks of denials.
NEWSREADER: Now, Belarus has fired two of its military top brass over the failure to stop an invasion of Swedish parachuting teddy bears. To explain why the fur is flying in Minsk...
NEWSREADER (Translation): Lukashenko sacked the Border Committee Head and the Air Defence Chief, major-generals Igor Rachkovsky and Dmitry Pakhmelkin.
Every war has casualties - even one waged against stuffed toys. Also in President Lukashenko's line of fire - the Swedish government.
SWEDISH NEWSREADER (Translation): We have been advised that the regime in Minsk has expelled all Swedish diplomats.
NEWSREADER: Belarus has recalled its ambassador to Sweden and is pulling out its entire embassy staff because of teddy bears!
REPORTER: What did you think of the way Lukashenko reacted?
PER CROMWELL: People are afraid of him, but when he reacts - overreacts, silly people tend to laugh at him and don't take him seriously. When that happens, then a dictator really is in big trouble - when people no longer really fear him, that they think that he's ridiculous.
INTERROGATOR (Translation): Who helped you? Who payed you and how much? Get him!
Around the world, people responded to the crackdown in Belarus with humour and mockery. Toy protests were staged outside Belarussian embassies throughout Europe.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: They are scared of bears.
POLICEMAN: That's a scary bear!
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: I know.
POLICEMAN: What's his name?
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: Teddy.
So what did the man who inspired the Swedish action, Pavel Vinogradov, think of it?
PAVEL VINOGRADOV (Translation): the idea of teddy bears jumping from a plane is certainly a great one, a surprising one. Pity I didn’t think of it, but I don’t have the opportunity or the resources to do it. All in all, it is good the Swedes supported us in that way.
Vinogradov has been jailed six times this year, and last month he was back in court. His latest arrest was thanks to a government crackdown in the run-up to parliamentary elections. Vinogradov belongs to a group of activists called Zmena - and this is how they launched the campaign of their own candidate. But it was just a front - they used the campaign as legal cover for their protests. Four days before the vote, police decided their 'Get Out of Jail Free' card had run out.
Today, four of Zmena's activists are on trial, but the atmosphere in court is surprisingly up-beat.
REPORTER: This is very serious, but you were smiling a lot in there.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: (Translation): Well, I think that…. What do you mean by serious? Serious. The purges of 1937 were serious. That was serious, people got shot and now the maximum I can get is 25 days behind bars. It’s the seventh time actually, I’m used to it. Why should I be upset? Nothing that terrible is going on.
I ask Pavel how he came up with the idea of using stuffed toys in protests.
PAVEL VINOGRADOV: (Translation): Fun and laughter kill fear – I realised that long ago and it really works. And secondly, I am provoking the regime into reacting unreasonably and I want them to look absurd. So in the end, if Lukashenko with all his army and all the police that he has is fighting against toys, he is looking ludicrous. That is what I wanted to achieve.
OFFICIAL (Translation): Tell me what is going on?
ILYA (Translation): He does not understand.
OFFICIAL (Translation): This man does.
GUARD (Translation): Translate for him that filming is forbidden.
Anything critical of the government is forbidden in Belarus.
OFFICIAL (Translation): I forbid you to film anything. Therefore please leave the premises.
ILYA (Translation): We were told we could film after the verdict.
OFFICIAL (Translation): You don’t film.
It's why the Swedes sent their teddy-bear paratroopers in the first place - as moral support for Belarussians brave enough to speak out.
TOMAS MAZETTI: We knew that people that were gonna side with us, that they would get punished for just telling this story as it was. That is what we were protesting in the first time. They are very brave and they are doing a very brave thing.
MARK DAVIS: Filmed and reported by Amos Roberts, who's with me now for a quick update. A bizarre story, Amos, bought serious one if you're on the receiving end of an angry government.
AMOS ROBERTS, VIDEO JOURNALIST: Yes, you heard there Anton Suryapin, the young student, spent over a month in a KGB prison. In fact, the real estate agent who'd rented a flat to one of the Swedes was also arrested - spent more than a month in prison, and both him and Anton, even though they're free now, have formally been charged with helping the Swedes in their illegal border crossing. That could get them up to seven years in prison.
MARK DAVIS: There's lots of gags about this story, but not much fun if you're being punched around by a fairly tough government.
AMOS ROBERTS: No.
MARK DAVIS: This is the offending item, what got them into trouble.
AMOS ROBERTS: Yes, I've got one of the teddy bears here. There were over 800 of these, all individually decorated by the Swedes. This one's got a bow tie and a nappy. Got their sign, and their parachute.
MARK DAVIS: It's got you into trouble too!
AMOS ROBERTS: It did get me into trouble. I was stopped at the airport when I was leaving Belarus, and they started to search my stuff - five Customs officials and a KGB guy. They discovered the teddy bear that I was carrying, which was wrapped up by dirty clothes. But they realised once they found that, that they had found something quite special.
MARK DAVIS: That's when the trouble started and your gear was...
AMOS ROBERTS: They took my camera, all my footage, my computer, my phone. A teddy bear like this looks very innocent but possibly the most subversive thing that could be found in your suitcase.
MARK DAVIS: So they're not just afraid of dangerous teddies, but of dangerous stories about teddies too?
AMOS ROBERTS: Anything to do with this story.
MARK DAVIS: You had to smuggle the tapes out?
AMOS ROBERTS: Yes, luckily put all the footage onto a spare hard drive, and that was smuggled out of the country and found its way here.
MARK DAVIS: We don't do that too often. It's normally in much more dangerous situations than this, but they clearly don't want this story to get out?
AMOS ROBERTS: No, it's embarrassing. Everybody is laughing except for the President, Alexander Lukashenko. He hates to be made an object of fun. Everyone has been watching this story on Russian television in Belarus, and they're laughing at him. That was precisely the point.
MARK DAVIS: They picked the right guy to lampoon.
AMOS ROBERTS: Indeed.
MARK DAVIS: You expecting to get back soon?
AMOS ROBERTS: I don't think so, although I had a meeting at the airport before I left from an official from the presidential administration. He said there'd be no problems at all. But I don't feel quite so safe. They invited the Swedes to come back. They wanted to investigate what they did. They invited them to come back and have a meeting at KGB headquarters. They politely declined and invited the President to come to Stockholm instead.
MARK DAVIS: Thank you for joining us. Thank you. There's links to some of the media coverage of Amos's time in Belarus, and his run-in with the authorities, on our website.
Reporter/Camera
AMOS ROBERTS
Producer
ASHLEY SMITH
Editors
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
SUE BELL
Fixer
ILYA KUZNIATSOU
Translations/Subtitling
ELENA MIKHAILIK
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN