KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Authorities in Belarus raided the properties of dozens of journalists and activists Wednesday, in keeping with a human rights group, in what seemed to be the most important one-day crackdown on dissent prior to now three months.
Unbiased journalists, human rights advocates and activists in at the very least 9 giant Belarusian cities had telephones and computer systems seized throughout the searches and have been interrogated, the Viasna human rights heart reported.
Within the capital, Minsk, authorities focused 10 individuals accused of funding antigovernment protests and spreading info deemed extremist.
Some 300 chats on the favored messaging app Telegram have been designated extremist by authorities, and customers of these chats may be sentenced to as much as 7 years in jail, if charged and convicted.
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Freelance journalist Larysa Shchyrakova stated she was introduced in for questioning after an hours-long search of her residence in Gomel, a metropolis 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Minsk. Shchyrakova used to work with the Belsat TV channel, which authorities in Belarus have declared extremist.
“I used to be being pressured to admit to funding the protests, however I refused to incriminate myself,” Shchyrakova informed The Related Press by phone. “They took my telephone, audio and video tools, which was nonetheless in my residence after the 2 earlier raids.”
Activists and journalists in Brest, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Grodno, Mazyr and different cities skilled comparable raids and detentions on Wednesday. Leaders of regional branches of the United Civil Celebration, the oldest opposition occasion in Belarus, in Gomel and Rechytsa have been focused as nicely.
“The brand new wave of repressions reveals that the authorities in Belarus don’t really feel assured and are compelled to tighten the screws as a result of discontent within the nation is rising,” occasion chief Anatoly Lebedko informed the AP by telephone from Vilnius.
“The state of affairs with civic freedoms and human rights in Belarus is deteriorating quickly, edging nearer to the requirements of North Korea,” Lebedko stated.
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The authoritarian chief of Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, survived months of unprecedented mass protests prompted by his Aug. 2020 reelection in a vote the opposition and Western international locations denounced as a sham.
Lukashenko unleashed a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, with police arresting greater than 35,000 and beating hundreds.
Since final 12 months’s election, Lukashenko’s authorities has shut down the vast majority of unbiased media retailers and rights teams.
In response to human rights advocates, 889 political prisoners, together with high opposition activists, stay behind bars in Belarus.
