Local journalist fined over “extremist” content

February 24, BPN. The Сourt of the Baranavičy District and the City of Baranavičy, Brest region, found an employee of the Intex-press publishing house guilty of disseminating extremist content.

Intex-press reports that Judge Ina Paŭłoŭskaja fined the journalist 555 rubels (over $200) and ordered her mobile phone to be confiscated as a “means of committing the offence.”

On February 16, the unnamed journalist was summoned to the Baranavičy police department for questioning and arrested for 72 hours.

One day earlier, security forces came to the publishing house and seized equipment due to complaints about the Intex-press YouTube channel, which posted vox pops by this journalist. Among other things, Baranavičy residents told her that they wanted Russia’s war in Ukraine to end.

The local newspaper has been under permanent pressure from the authorities since it published an interview with opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja in April 2021.