The Minsk City Prosecutor’s Office has reported on its efforts to pursue dissent and the political opponents of Aliaksandr Lukashenka online. According to the office, during the first six months of the year it submitted 36 applications to courts seeking to have information materials designated as “extremist materials.”
Following applications by Minsk prosecutors, “extremist materials” status was assigned to content published on 14 Instagram pages, 13 Threads accounts, five Telegram channels and/or chats (bots), two Facebook accounts (communities), one TikTok account, one YouTube channel, one website and one VKontakte page.
The prosecutors separately emphasized that their applications served as the basis for adding the accounts of well-known politicians to the list of “extremist materials.”
“For example, following applications by prosecutors, the information products of the ‘Libertarian Movement of Belarus’ community were recognized as extremist, including the ‘Libertarian Movement of Belarus’ Telegram channel, the ‘Libertarian Movement of Belarus’ pages on VKontakte and Facebook, the ‘Franak Viacorka,’ ‘Анатоль Лябедзька’ and ‘Святлана Цiханоўская’ accounts on Threads, and the ‘zmagarenok’ page on the TikTok social entertainment platform,” the statement said.
In addition, four books were designated as “extremist materials” following applications submitted by prosecutors to the courts.
Minsk prosecutors also secured the removal from online platforms of offers to sell 61 publications included on the list of banned materials.