A resident of Homyel has been detained and placed in a detention center for subscribing to a Telegram group. The young man had planned to serve under contract in the air defence forces, but his career is now under threat. His father spoke about the case in a video noticed by the media outlet Flagшток.
According to him, the group in question is “a group with a thousand subscribers — a thousand pieces of working material, people like you and me.”
“He wanted to go into service for five years, to protect you from drones so that you could live under a peaceful sky. But the court may ruin his career. For some single subscription to a group that is banned in Belarus,” the man said.
He also said that he himself had previously faced a similar situation — a report was drawn up against him for a subscription, but the case did not reach court because the offence could not be proven. He called for information about exactly which groups are banned to be made public: “We don’t know which groups are banned.”
As the outlet notes, such cases in Belarus are usually opened under Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences for distributing or storing materials containing calls for “extremist activity.” The punishment is a large fine or arrest.
Belarusian authorities say they have already designated more than 9,000 so-called “extremist materials,” and the list is regularly expanded. Users in the comments note that it is physically impossible to track all the entries.
The father did not report the outcome of the court hearing but later published another video saying that he could not find his son either in court or at the police station.
It should be recalled that in Belarus accusations of extremism are used to persecute opponents of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, as well as dissent in general.