KGB cracks down on Belarus-based polltakers
June 4, Pozirk. Committee for State Security (KGB) agents searched homes and arrested several interviewers in polls conducted by the recently blacklisted Belarusian Analytical Workshop (BAW), two sources who wished to remain anonymous have told Pozirk.
Some have the status of witnesses and at least one of the arrested faces criminal charges, the sources said. One person has reportedly fled Belarus for a country that does not require an entry visa. KGB agents seized computers, laptops and phones, trying to find out who conducted opinion polls and how interviewers were paid for their services.
The crackdown comes less than two weeks after a state-run television channel ran a story about chief KGB General Kanstancin Byčak who posed as a Naftan oil refinery employee for a BAW survey. He reportedly talked to BAW executive Maryna Novikava, exposing his identity at the end of the conversation.
The incident occurred days after the KGB branded the BAW an extremist group. The KGB listed prominent sociologist Andrej Vardamacki, political scientist Pavieł Vusaŭ and Maryna Novikava as members.
Vardamacki left Belarus in 2010 and founded the BAW, an independent pollster, in Warsaw two years later. It has conducted public opinion surveys in Belarus and research into political attitudes and media consumption.
Earlier this year, the Investigative Committee said it completed investigation in a high treason case involving surveys and featuring three suspects, a man and two women, but did not identify them.
Following the 2020 political crisis, authorities in Belarus banned opinion polls unauthorized by the government and equated criticism, solidarity, advocacy, free media and free expression to extremism and terrorism.
