Александр Баранов. Источник фото: prisoners.spring96.org
Belarus’ Interior Ministry has added five more people to its “List of Citizens of the Republic of Belarus, Foreign Citizens and Stateless Persons Involved in Extremist Activity”.
Among them is 50-year-old political prisoner Aliaksandr Baranau from the village of Penitsa in the Kalinkavichy district of the Homiel region. According to the Viasna Human Rights Centre, he was detained in January last year in connection with the “Hajun case”. The ministry’s list states that he is “serving his sentence”.
Belarusian Hajun was an OSINT monitoring project tracking the military activity of Russian and Belarusian forces. The monitoring group was established before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by activist Anton Motolka. In early February 2025, Belarusian security forces gained access to the project’s chatbot. The project subsequently announced that it was ceasing operations.
The “extremist” list now contains 6,811 names.
The Belarusian authorities regularly use accusations of extremism to target political opponents and dissent more broadly.