New HTP chief says programmers are welcome back unless they face “serious restrictions”

June 12, Pozirk. Hanna Rabava, head of the Minsk-based High-Tech Park (HTP), has told the state-run television channel Belarus 1 that the park welcomes exiled IT specialists who do not face “any serious restrictions” to come back home.

By “serious restrictions” she alluded to politically-motivated criminal persecution.

“Here, we would talk about how ready these people are to return, how ready they are to work by our country’s rules and guidelines. And to what extent we can offer them terms and conditions to fully satisfy their ambitions. So, this is a two-way street,” Rabava said.

Recognizing the IT community’s high mobility, the official said patriotism is still important, and it would be wrong to claim that IT professionals “cannot appreciate the benefits of their homeland.”

Two weeks ago, media reported that the Belarusian government appointed Rabava, a former deputy communications and IT minister, to lead the country’s IT hub. She replaced Alaksandar Bazanaŭ, a former KGB officer who had held this position since 2023.

Belarus’ IT industry is recovering after a slump caused by the relocation of companies abroad amid political reprisals and sanctions imposed on the country for its complicity in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Politics, Society

Łukašenka grants 50 percent of pardon requests ­ official 

June 12, Pozirk. Alaksandar Łukašenka has granted 50 percent of petitions for pardon in the first five months of 2025, said Volha Čuprys, his administration’s chief legal officer who chairs a commission on pardons and releases. Before 2023, the average …

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