Brest journalist to stand trial for alleged collaboration with “extremist entity”

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Brest Region has announced that it has referred a crim­i­nal case to court against a Brest res­i­dent under Part 3 of Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist enti­ty).

Brest Region Prosecutor’s Office. Pho­to: Valer Karol

Accord­ing to the press ser­vice of the Brest Region Prosecutor’s Office, the defen­dant alleged­ly joined the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists no lat­er than Octo­ber 2023. The orga­ni­za­tion was des­ig­nat­ed an “extrem­ist enti­ty” by the KGB on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023.

The author­i­ties have not dis­closed the name of the accused but claim that, as a mem­ber of the “extrem­ist enti­ty,” he authored at least 43 arti­cles pub­lished online. The offi­cial state­ment empha­sizes that the jour­nal­ist is cur­rent­ly in cus­tody.