Lukashenko regime recognizes opposition Telegram channels as "extremist formations"

Subscribers to the “extremist” Telegram channels and chat rooms may be prosecuted, according to a government decree published by the Central Office for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption on 13 October.

The head of the authority later clarified that criminal cases threaten subscribers to Telegram channels identified as “extremist formations”, but subscriptions to channels identified as “extremist material” are “not yet penalized”.

Prior to being recognized as extremist formations by NEXTA, NEXTA-Live and LUXTA, five Telegram channels, two chat rooms and two websites had this status.

NEXTA has more than 400,000 subscribers, NEXTA-Live more than 900,000 and LUXTA more than 100,000.

All three channels had previously been identified as extremist in Belarus, but Njata’s founder, Scjapan Pucil, had been prosecuted for inciting riots and inciting hatred “against the authorities and law enforcement agencies”.

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Former NEXTA editor-in-chief Raman Pratasevich was arrested in May after Belarus forced Minsk to land a Vilnius-Athens plane.

He is accused of organizing riots, inciting social hatred, and gross violations of public order.

Pratasevich has been under house arrest since the end of June.

The Belarusian Committee of Inquiry claims that he has reached an agreement with the investigators. Pratasevich then gave interviews to Belarusian state broadcasters.

Belarus was taken over by mass protests, with hundreds of thousands of people outraged by the rigging of the results, reportedly following the August 9 presidential election in Belarus, which was once again won by Alexander Lukashenko.

The protests were brutally suppressed by the authorities and gradually subsided by the winter.

Tens of thousands of people were detained during the protests. Hundreds of protesters were injured, but several were also killed.