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Minsk Labels RFE/RL’s Belarus Service as ‘Extremist’
POLITICS
23.12.2021 | 20:29
Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged, VOA reported.
According to the statement issued by the ministry on December 23, “a group of citizens associated via Radio Svaboda’s internet resources were determined to be an extremist group.”
The move means that Belarusians who subscribe to Radio Svaboda online could face up to six years in prison.
The move comes almost three weeks after a court in Minsk designated Radio Svaboda’s official Telegram channel and some of the broadcaster’s social media accounts as extremist.
Authorities in Belarus have declared hundreds of Telegram channels, blogs and chatrooms as “extremist” since the country was engulfed by protests since the August 2020 presidential election, which handed Lukashenko a sixth consecutive term.
