KGB blacklists reporter Mažejka, others as “terrorists”

June 29, BPN. The Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB) has added five names to the list of people it says are involved in terrorism, including a prominent journalist.

Belarusian human rights groups declared reporter Hienadź Mažejka, accountant Hanna Karniajenka and former commando Maksim Sielaźnioŭ political prisoners.

The new additions also include Pavieł Sałahub, charged with inciting hatred, and Siarhiej Navumčyk, convicted of sharing sensitive information with an opposition group.

Mažejka was arrested in October 2021, after he interviewed a classmate of an IT professional who died in a gunfight with KGB agents during a raid on his apartment.

Fierce propaganda criticism of the interview prompted Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, the newspaper that published it, to close down.

According to investigators, Mažejka also wrote “negative, obscene and unacceptable” comments about Alaksandr Łukašenka on the Internet.

On March 23, Minsk City Court sentenced the journalist to three years in prison for inciting hatred and insulting the head of state.

The KGB has blacklisted a total of 1,073 people.