Interior ministry brands several opposition Telegram channels as extremist groups

June 10, BPN. The interior ministry on June 9 added the Telegram channels Maja Kraina Belarus, Usy Lukashenko, Elechtarat, and Sergei Bespalov to its list of extremist groups.

In October 2021, the government passed a directive entitled “On Measures to Counter Extremism and Rehabilitation of Nazism” as part of its efforts to enforce an anti-extremism law.

The interior ministry warned the same month that “subscribing to extremist channels and chat rooms entails criminal liability.” It also warned that extremist Telegram channel subscribers will face criminal charges as members of extremist groups.

The distribution of extremist material is punishable under the Administrative Offenses Code, while participation in the activities of “extremist formations” is a crime carrying a prison sentence.

To date, the interior ministry’s list of extremist groups has about 70 entries. BelaPAN, Belsat TV, Radio Svaboda and Naša Niva are among media organizations blacklisted by authorities as extremist. A trial opened in Minsk earlier this week against BelaPAN journalists accused for forming an extremist group.

Judge Ihar Švedaŭ of the Mahiloŭ Regional Court on June 8 sentenced Andrej Kuznečyk, a RFE/RL Belarus Service contributor, to six years in a high-security prison for allegedly establishing an extremist orgainization.