The Belarusian justice ordered Tuesday, October 20 the placement on the list of "
extremist
"
resources
the Telegram channel NEXTA Live, which partly coordinates the protest against President Alexander Lukashenko and has some 2 million subscribers.
Read also: Lukashenko beheads the Belarusian opposition
In a judgment released Tuesday, the Belarusian Supreme Court considers that NEXTA Live broadcast "
extremist content
" including "
the organization and public calls for the implementation of massive unrest
".
"
The Ministry of Information must include this channel and its logo in the list of extremist resources and take measures to limit access to information resources of similar name and their dissemination,
" said the Supreme Court, adding that the decision is "
enforceable immediately
".
The Interior Ministry then clarified what the decision entailed.
“
Posting or displaying, including sharing, information containing the NEXTA or NEXTA Live logo
” is liable to prosecution for extremism, he said.
The spokesperson for the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Boris Goretski, told AFP that the penalties are equivalent to the sum of 400 euros for a natural person and 4,000 euros for a legal entity.
Read also: Belarus: more than 200 demonstrators arrested in Minsk
Nexta ("
Someone
" in Belarusian, editor's note) was created in 2015 by a Belarusian blogger, Stepan Svetlov, who now lives in exile in Poland.
Its channel, followed by two million subscribers, helps to mobilize protesters, giving the slogans of demonstrations or their route and making it possible to share photos and videos of gatherings and violence.
However, it is unlikely that the Belarusian authorities will succeed in preventing the broadcast of its Telegram channel, this social network being known to rarely submit to the decisions of the national authorities and to have succeeded in bypassing its blocking ordered by the Russian justice.
Belarus has been shaken for more than two months by a protest movement calling for the resignation of Alexander Lukashenko, officially re-elected president with 80% of the vote despite accusations of massive fraud.
