Максим Шуканов. Скриншот Youtube-канала UnionBell
The Interior Ministry has added another 35 people to the “List of Citizens of the Republic of Belarus, Foreign Citizens, or Stateless Persons Involved in Extremist Activity.”
Among those added is 37-year-old Mazyr-based blogger Maksim Shukanau, as well as 19 other individuals convicted of “facilitating extremist activity.”
Shukanau’s father, Ihar Shukanau, an employee of the informatics and communications laboratory at the Mazyr Oil Refinery, and his fiancée, Mazyr activist and blogger Palina Zyl, are also behind bars.
More than 6,000 users are subscribed to his Union Bell YouTube channel. Shukanau did not leave the country despite the intensification of repression. According to the Viasna Human Rights Center, he and his fiancée went underground. Shukanau has serious health problems and has been diagnosed with epilepsy.
Last year, Shukanau was sentenced to four years in a penal colony. He was found guilty under three articles of the Criminal Code: Part 1 of Article 342 (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order), Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 (facilitating extremist activity), and Part 3 of Article 361-1 (membership in an extremist formation). According to the prosecution, Shukanau edited content on YouTube channels of an association of former security officers who sided with the people during the post-election protests of 2020.
“His tasks as a member of an extremist formation included editing destructive content on the BYPOL and BELPOL YouTube channels, creating the BELPOL logo, and other activities. He also facilitated the extremist activity of the Belarusian Hajun formation,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
The blogger was also accused of participating in protests in Minsk in August 2020.
The list now contains 6,261 names.
Belarusian authorities regularly use extremism charges to combat political opponents and dissent more broadly.