The Minsk Region Prosecutor’s Office reported on filing applications with courts to have information products recognised as “extremist materials”. In Belarus, extremism charges are regularly used to combat political opponents and dissent in general.
According to the report, 334 such applications were filed with courts last year, and more than 1,400 over the past five years.
As an example, the prosecutor of Pukhavichy District is cited, who in 2025 filed 61 applications to have materials recognised as “extremist” and, during monitoring, also initiated a criminal case under an article for insulting Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
“In the course of monitoring participants and active users of the public Telegram channel for online communication ‘Pukhavichy District LIVE chat’, the district prosecutor’s office established the involvement of a local resident in organising group actions that grossly violated public order and were accompanied by clear disobedience to the lawful demands of representatives of the authorities. As a result of the inspection conducted within the framework of an inter-agency working group, the prosecutor initiated a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus,” the prosecutor’s office added.
