New arrest in Mahiloŭ as police clamp down on remaining local journalists

December 13, Pozirk. Police arrested journalist Aleś Sabaleŭski in Mahiloŭ on December 12, weeks after two local media outlets were branded extremist groups.

Sabaleŭski has not been released and is said to be held at the local detention center, the Belarusian Association of Journalists reported citing his friend.

On November 29, the Committee for State Security (KGB) declared https://mogilev.media/ and 6TV Bielarus, a YouTube news channel, extremist groups. Investigators may be suspecting Sabaleŭski of cooperating with one of these outlets.

Police already searched his home in December 2021, as well as the office of the Mahiloŭski Rehijon website. Sabaleŭski and two other journalists, Jaŭhien Hłushkou and Barys Vyrvič, were questioned as witnesses in a criminal case. Police returned them confiscated equipment in October 2022.

Authorities have intensified the crackdown on local media in the run-up to the February 25 parliamentary and local elections.

On December 6, police raided Vyrvič’s home in Bialynichy, Mahiloŭ region, seizing all electronic devices found there. Vyrvič was released after an interrogation.

Most journalists associated with 6TV Bielarus have fled the country for fear of persecution and continue producing daily news shows from abroad. In August 2021, KGB officers forced the channel’s IT specialist Kanstancin Latuškin to give away passwords to the Mahiloŭski Rehijon administration dashboard and sign a pledge to cooperate, threatening to open a terrorism case against him if he refused.

Latuškin left Belarus after the detention.