Police blacklist 18 over “extremist activity”

February 3, BPN. The Belarusian interior ministry has branded another 18 people participants in “extremist activity,” the ministry says on its website.

Among them are the husband and wife reporters who were sentenced to restricted freedom in home confinement. In January, a court in Minsk found Śniažana Inaniec and Alaksandr Łyčaŭka guilty of organization of/active participation in group actions grossly disturbing public order.

The police register now also includes Uładzisłaŭ Vajna, serving a two-year sentence for filming military aircraft in Žłobin, Homiel region, and Jaŭhien Batura, awaiting a restricted freedom punishment for protesting.

Trade union activist Alaksandr Mišuk was also blacklisted. He had been sentenced to two-and-a-half years for calling for sanctions to be imposed on Belarus. On February 2, the Committee for State Security (KGB) put him on its own list of people involved in “terrorist activity.”

The interior ministry’s “extremist” list now has 2,388 names.

Security forces often present opposition activists as extremists or terrorists in order to intimidate them.