{"id":554325,"date":"2026-06-25T18:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=554325"},"modified":"2026-06-26T04:07:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T01:07:31","slug":"association-of-belarusians-in-america-declared-an-extremist-formation-in-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/association-of-belarusians-in-america-declared-an-extremist-formation-in-belarus","title":{"rendered":"Association of Belarusians in America Declared an &#8220;Extremist Formation&#8221; in Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Belarus&#8217; Interior Ministry has designated the Association of Belarusians in America (ABA) an &#8220;extremist formation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the ministry, the following individuals are affiliated with the organization: <strong>Marya Astapenka, Tatsiana Astapenka, Anton Belianski, Emiliya Barkouskaya-Stepanchuk, Volha Broman, Filipp Havrysheu, Marya Yafimava, Yauhen Zhdanovich, Anzhalika Zaitseva, Hleb Ivashkevich, Katsiaryna Maliyeuskaya, Vitali Samsonau, Artur Senka, Volha Shalyha, Siarhei Shalyha, Hanna Sharko and Aliaksandr Yankouski<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Interior Ministry&#8217;s list of &#8220;extremist formations&#8221; also mentions the website and social media accounts of the Byaction volunteer initiative in connection with the association.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities in Belarus routinely use extremism-related charges to target opponents of <strong>Aliaksandr Lukashenka<\/strong> and suppress dissent more broadly.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-554287\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-300x53.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-1200x211.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-768x135.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-1536x271.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-2048x361.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-25-at-18.06.40-870x153.jpeg 870w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belarus&#8217; Interior Ministry has designated the Association of Belarusians in America (ABA) an &#8220;extremist formation.&#8221; According to the ministry, the following individuals are affiliated with the organization: Marya Astapenka, Tatsiana Astapenka, Anton Belianski, Emiliya Barkouskaya-Stepanchuk, Volha Broman, Filipp Havrysheu, Marya Yafimava, Yauhen Zhdanovich, Anzhalika Zaitseva, Hleb Ivashkevich, Katsiaryna Maliyeuskaya, Vitali Samsonau, Artur Senka, Volha Shalyha, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":554324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6a3dd0d69b748.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Association of Belarusians in America Declared an \u00abExtremist Formation\u00bb in Belarus"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}