The Belarusian Interior Ministry has branded the Belsat Internet resource as extremist.
“The Interior Ministry has branded as an extremist network and has prohibited the operation of a group of citizens united by Belsat Internet resources in the territory of the Republic of Belarus,” the ministry said on Telegram on Nov. 3.
Eleven entities, networks, and individual entrepreneurs are now listed as extremists in Belarus.
The website and social networks of the Belsat Polish television channel were designated as extremist in Belarus in July 2021. The Zheleznodorozhny District Court in Gomel passed the ruling on July 27 on the basis of materials from the Gomel regional division of the Interior Ministry’s Main Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Department.
In February 2021, a court in Minsk sentenced Belsat journalists Darya Chultsova and Yekaterina Andreyeva to two years in custody for taking an active part and steering “group actions that bluntly breached the public peace” and disrupted the functioning of public transport.
Belsat is a Belarusian-language satellite TV channel founded under an agreement between the Polish Foreign Ministry and the Polish public television TVP. In 2014, the Belarusian Supreme Court compelled the Polish television to stop using the Belsat trademark in its broadcasts in the Belarusian territory.
The TV channel is not accredited in Belarus.
