MINSK – About 30 people have been detained in Gomel for subscribing to Telegram channels designated as extremist in Belarus, human rights activists said.
“On Oct. 25, numerous detentions took place in Gomel, where almost 30 people were apprehended. It emerged that protocols under Article 19.11 of the Administrative Offenses Code (distribution, manufacture, storage, transportation of information products containing calls to extremist activity or promoting such activity) were drawn up against the detainees allegedly for subscribing to extremist channels,” a message in the Telegram channel of the Viasna human rights center, which is unregistered in Belarus, said on Oct. 26.
Vitaly Pristromov, spokesman of the police department of the Gomel regional executive committee, told Interfax that “he has no information on the matter.”
On Oct. 12, a governmental decree on measures for “countering extremism and rehabilitation of Nazism” was adopted in Belarus. As for its fulfilment, the country’s Interior Ministry said that readers of extremist resources are not threatened with criminal liability if they do not promote and disseminate extremist materials. “Subscription is already an element of popularization, distribution of extremist information. Those people who are just getting acquainted with it, there can be no claims to them in line with the law,” a representative of the Interior Ministry said.
According to the estimates of the Interior Ministry, there are more than 320 destructive Telegram channels and chats in Belarus. All of them are designated as extremist by Belarus courts.
