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    The Belarusian Association of Journalists > International Reports > Extremism and media

    Extremism and media

    26 January 2024
    Беларуская асацыяцыя журналістаў

    Given the significant role of "anti-extremism policy" in shaping the media landscape in Belarus, this report aims to analyse the legal regulation of combating extremism and its current application concerning independent media and their representatives. The starting point for this analysis is the international standards of human rights and freedoms, which serve as the key benchmark for any democratic state under any circumstances.

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    The Reporters With­out Bor­ders World Press Free­dom Index 2023 inter­ac­tive glob­al map has assigned Belarus a dis­con­cert­ing dark red colour, indi­cat­ing a «very seri­ous» threat to the free oper­a­tion of media and jour­nal­ists in the coun­try. The eval­u­a­tion of the Index is based on sev­er­al fac­tors, includ­ing polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and socio-cul­tur­al con­texts, legal reg­u­la­tions, and secu­ri­ty lev­els. Accord­ing to the experts involved in the assess­ment, Belarus ranks 157th out of 180 pos­si­ble coun­tries, on par with Pales­tine and Nicaragua. This assess­ment reflects the cur­rent state of media free­dom in Belarus, which is regret­table.

    For over three years, the gov­ern­ment of Belarus has been imple­ment­ing an exten­sive pol­i­cy to sup­press inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism. It evi­dent­ly per­ceives media capa­ble of inform­ing the pub­lic about events in the coun­try as a direct threat to its «exis­tence». This pol­i­cy takes dif­fer­ent forms, each rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns regard­ing human rights stan­dards and media free­dom. The use of «anti-extrem­ism mea­sures» has become one of the most con­ve­nient and favoured tools of the gov­ern­men­t’s repres­sive pol­i­cy against inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism. The state has essen­tial­ly equat­ed «extrem­ism» with «inde­pen­dent media», lead­ing to crim­i­nal cas­es against media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, their inclu­sion in «extrem­ist» and «ter­ror­ist lists», arbi­trary des­ig­na­tion of edi­to­r­i­al offices as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions». Inde­pen­dent media pub­li­ca­tions are labelled as “extrem­ist mate­r­i­al”, with access to their online resources blocked. More­over, audi­ence inter­ac­tion with these media is pro­hib­it­ed under the threat of admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty.

    Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cant role of «anti-extrem­ism pol­i­cy» in shap­ing the media land­scape in Belarus, this report aims to analyse the legal reg­u­la­tion of com­bat­ing extrem­ism and its cur­rent appli­ca­tion con­cern­ing inde­pen­dent media and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The start­ing point for this analy­sis is the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of human rights and free­doms, which serve as the key bench­mark for any demo­c­ra­t­ic state under any cir­cum­stances.

    PART 1. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND EXTREMISM

    The study of state poli­cies aimed at coun­ter­ing extrem­ism rais­es a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion regard­ing the legal bound­aries and con­cep­tu­al frame­work of this phe­nom­e­non. Before deter­min­ing how a state should con­front extrem­ism, it is cru­cial to define pre­cise­ly what the state is coun­ter­ing. What con­sti­tutes extrem­ism in legal terms? How­ev­er, answer­ing this ques­tion is chal­leng­ing.

    Despite the increas­ing sig­nif­i­cance of the con­cept of extrem­ism on the inter­na­tion­al stage in recent decades, and calls by the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al for states to take mea­sures against this issue, there remains no clear def­i­n­i­tion of extrem­ism in inter­na­tion­al law. Fur­ther­more, no uni­ver­sal inter­na­tion­al treaty cur­rent­ly men­tions extrem­ism, con­se­quent­ly not stip­u­lat­ing any state oblig­a­tions in this regard. This indi­cates that inter­na­tion­al law does not explic­it­ly man­date states to counter this prob­lem.

    How­ev­er, estab­lish­ing a legal def­i­n­i­tion of extrem­ism would lay the foun­da­tion for clear legal stan­dards. Nev­er­the­less, even with­out a legal oblig­a­tion to define extrem­ism, inter­na­tion­al “soft law instru­ments” doc­u­ments still lack a clear def­i­n­i­tion of the term. For instance, the UN Plan of Action to Pre­vent Vio­lent Extrem­ism acknowl­edges that extrem­ism is a «diverse phe­nom­e­non, with­out clear def­i­n­i­tion». Sim­i­lar­ly, the report by the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights describes extrem­ism as a «phe­nom­e­non that is dif­fi­cult to ful­ly grasp». Notably, these doc­u­ments affirm the pre­rog­a­tive of mem­ber states to inde­pen­dent­ly define extrem­ism in their nation­al leg­is­la­tion. This approach may result in vary­ing and poten­tial­ly harm­ful inter­pre­ta­tions of extrem­ism since there are no well-defined inter­na­tion­al stan­dards avail­able to guide states in reg­u­lat­ing extrem­ism.

    Notwith­stand­ing the absence of a uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized def­i­n­i­tion of extrem­ism, inter­na­tion­al law fur­nish­es a frame­work that can guide states in the devel­op­ment of their own def­i­n­i­tions. This frame­work, which encom­pass­es both oblig­a­tory and rec­om­menda­to­ry inter­na­tion­al legal acts, lays down the para­me­ters that nation­al def­i­n­i­tions of extrem­ism ought to abide by. At a min­i­mum, this implies that anti-extrem­ism mea­sures should con­form to oth­er inter­na­tion­al legal oblig­a­tions, includ­ing human rights oblig­a­tions, while delin­eat­ing bound­aries that states must not trans­gress. This report will touch on key ele­ments of this «frame­work,» through which Belarus’s «anti-extrem­ist» pol­i­cy will be ana­lyzed.

    Violent extremism as a breeding ground to terrorism

    Upon ana­lyz­ing the rea­sons behind the rise of extrem­ism as a glob­al con­cern, it becomes evi­dent that there is a strong cor­re­la­tion between extrem­ism and ter­ror­ism. The Unit­ed Nations (UN) rec­og­nized this con­nec­tion in 2006 through the adop­tion of the Glob­al Counter-Ter­ror­ism Strat­e­gy, which empha­sized the impor­tance of «address­ing con­di­tions con­ducive to the spread of ter­ror­ism» as a crit­i­cal step in fight­ing it. The UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil lat­er high­light­ed the fact that vio­lent extrem­ism could serve as a «fer­tile breed­ing ground» for ter­ror­ism and called for mea­sures to be tak­en against it. It is impor­tant to note (a detail not pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, despite its fun­da­men­tal impor­tance) that the dis­cus­sion per­tains to vio­lent extrem­ism that feeds into ter­ror­ism. The Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil lists «pre­vent­ing  rad­i­cal­iza­tion, recruit­ment, and mobi­liza­tion of indi­vid­u­als into ter­ror­ist groups and becom­ing for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers» as some of the actions that can be tak­en to counter vio­lent extrem­ism.

    Thus, speak­ing of extrem­ism in the inter­na­tion­al legal con­text, we refer not to a vague «adher­ence to extreme views and mea­sures» but rather to phe­nom­e­na inher­ent­ly linked to vio­lence and ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty. More­over, the UN Plan of Action to Pre­vent Vio­lent Extrem­ism asserts that “ter­ror­ist groups like the Islam­ic State of Iraq and the Lev­ant (ISIL), Al-Qae­da, and Boko Haram shape the under­stand­ing of vio­lent extrem­ism”. In light of this, it is clear that states should con­cen­trate exclu­sive­ly on vio­lent extrem­ism that leads to ter­ror­ism when devel­op­ing nation­al strate­gies to counter extrem­ism.

    It is also impor­tant to con­sid­er that estab­lish­ing a link between extrem­ism and ter­ror­ism does not resolve all dif­fi­cul­ties in defin­ing extrem­ism. In par­tic­u­lar, it should be not­ed that inter­na­tion­al law also lacks a uni­ver­sal def­i­n­i­tion of «ter­ror­ism». How­ev­er, unlike extrem­ism, there are inter­na­tion­al treaties stip­u­lat­ing oblig­a­tions in this area. Despite rec­og­niz­ing that «extrem­ism is regard­ed as being broad­er» than that of ter­ror­ism, a clear dis­tinc­tion between these terms has not yet been made, which is log­i­cal, giv­en their lack of uni­ver­sal def­i­n­i­tions. Nev­er­the­less, under­stand­ing that the idea of coun­ter­ing vio­lent extrem­ism emerged with­in the glob­al counter-ter­ror­ism strat­e­gy allows for some sig­nif­i­cant con­clu­sions regard­ing pol­i­cy actions in this direc­tion.

    Addressing factors that contribute to violent extremism

    While the direct fight against ter­ror­ism main­ly focus­es on “steps tak­en by law enforce­ment, mil­i­tary or secu­ri­ty mea­sures”, coun­ter­ing vio­lent extrem­ism extends “beyond these con­cert­ed actions”. This pol­i­cy empha­sizes sys­tem­at­ic pre­ven­tive mea­sures address­ing fac­tors that fos­ter vio­lent extrem­ism. The UN Plan of Action iden­ti­fies sev­er­al such fac­tors, includ­ing lack of socioe­co­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties, mar­gin­al­iza­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion, poor gov­er­nance, vio­la­tions of human rights and the rule of law, pro­longed and unre­solved con­flicts, and rad­i­cal­iza­tion in pris­ons due to harsh treat­ment.

    Inves­ti­gat­ing the root caus­es of vio­lent extrem­ism dic­tates the most effec­tive cours­es of action for states to counter it. Specif­i­cal­ly, The Plan of Action urges states to take con­crete mea­sures that address these fac­tors, such as com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, expand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple, and pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­i­ty. Fur­ther­more, it is crit­i­cal to pri­or­i­tize human rights com­pli­ance which is cru­cial for inte­grat­ing indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties most vul­ner­a­ble to involve­ment in vio­lent extrem­ism. This involves elim­i­nat­ing impuni­ty for human rights vio­la­tions and con­se­quent­ly estab­lish­ing an inde­pen­dent judi­cia­ry.

    Ulti­mate­ly, a state’s «fight» against vio­lent extrem­ism should pri­mar­i­ly focus on sys­temic actions with­in state insti­tu­tions that pro­mote sus­tain­able dia­logue with cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who are most vul­ner­a­ble. By cul­ti­vat­ing func­tion­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions that allow cit­i­zens to voice their needs and inter­ests with­out resort­ing to vio­lence, a state can reduce the appeal of vio­lent extrem­ism.

    Counter-extremism policy and human rights

    As men­tioned ear­li­er, respect­ing and ensur­ing human rights is cru­cial to effec­tive­ly imple­ment­ing a pol­i­cy to counter extrem­ism, and con­verse­ly, vio­lent extrem­ism pos­es a threat to these rights and free­doms. The UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, in his Report, empha­sized that “the impact of vio­lent extrem­ism on human rights can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed in view of the shock­ing bru­tal­i­ty per­pe­trat­ed on a dai­ly basis” high­light­ing the oblig­a­tion of states «to  pro­tect all indi­vid­u­als with­in its ter­ri­to­ry and those sub­ject to its juris­dic­tion from vio­lence». There­fore, the imple­men­ta­tion of a pol­i­cy against vio­lent extrem­ism can be seen as part of ful­fill­ing a state’s inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions. How­ev­er, the threat of vio­lence from extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions does not give states carte blanche to adopt any anti-extrem­ist mea­sures under the guise of «pro­tect­ing human rights». Ensur­ing «nation­al secu­ri­ty» should not be con­sid­ered by the state as a high­er pri­or­i­ty than ful­fill­ing its oblig­a­tions regard­ing human rights.

    Thus, anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of the «frame­work» of inter­na­tion­al law is strict com­pli­ance of any «anti-extrem­ist» mea­sures with the state’s human rights oblig­a­tions. In devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing pol­i­cy in this area, the state must ensure that its actions do not con­tra­dict estab­lished inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, includ­ing the pro­vi­sions of the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, giv­en the focus of this report, when coun­ter­ing extrem­ism in media activ­i­ties, close atten­tion should be paid to the stan­dards of free­dom of expres­sion, as reg­u­lat­ed in Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant.

    Free­dom of expres­sion is not absolute and there are per­mis­si­ble lim­its to this right. How­ev­er, any restric­tion imposed by the state must be law­ful, pur­sue one of the list­ed legit­i­mate aims, and be nec­es­sary for achiev­ing the stat­ed aim, as stip­u­lat­ed in Arti­cle 19(3). In this con­text, the notion of «law» should be clar­i­fied to mean that any leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sions must be for­mu­lat­ed with suf­fi­cient pre­ci­sion to pro­vide state rep­re­sen­ta­tives with guid­ance for their imple­men­ta­tion and enable indi­vid­u­als to reg­u­late their con­duct accord­ing­ly. There­fore, in devel­op­ing def­i­n­i­tions of «vio­lent extrem­ism» at the nation­al lev­el, states must ensure these def­i­n­i­tions are unam­bigu­ous and con­tain suf­fi­cient cri­te­ria for a clear under­stand­ing of the reg­u­la­tion sub­ject.

    In addi­tion, when con­sid­er­ing the pur­suit of a legit­i­mate aim, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant out­lines a defin­i­tive list of legit­i­mate aims, with nation­al secu­ri­ty being one of them. How­ev­er, just because vio­lent extrem­ism pos­es a threat to inter­na­tion­al peace and secu­ri­ty, it does not jus­ti­fy any restric­tion on free­dom of expres­sion in the guise of «com­bat­ing vio­lent extrem­ism» being a legit­i­mate aim for pro­tect­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty. Accord­ing to the Johan­nes­burg Prin­ci­ples, the state can invoke «nation­al secu­ri­ty» only if there is a direct and imme­di­ate con­nec­tion between the expres­sion incit­ing vio­lent acts and the like­li­hood or occur­rence of such vio­lence. More­over, even if such a link exists, the state-imposed restric­tion must con­form to the prin­ci­ple of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and be the least restric­tive mea­sure nec­es­sary to safe­guard the relat­ed inter­est.

    There­fore, despite the lack of a uni­ver­sal under­stand­ing of vio­lent extrem­ism, inter­na­tion­al law estab­lish­es a cer­tain «frame­work» that states must fol­low in imple­ment­ing nation­al pol­i­cy. This frame­work com­pris­es the fol­low­ing essen­tial ele­ments:

    • State poli­cies should aim to pre­vent vio­lent extrem­ism that leads to ter­ror­ism.

    • To counter vio­lent extrem­ism, states should pri­mar­i­ly imple­ment sys­tem­at­ic pre­ven­tive mea­sures tar­get­ing the fac­tors that con­tribute to extrem­ism.

    • Any «anti-extrem­ist» mea­sures must strict­ly adhere to states’ inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions to respect, ensure, and pro­tect human rights.

    PART 2. BELARUS AND EXTREMISM

    Chapter 1. The concept of “extremism” in Belarusian legislation

    Before delv­ing into the nation­al leg­isla­tive reg­u­la­tion of “anti-extrem­ist pol­i­cy”, it is nec­es­sary to focus on some inter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments made by the Repub­lic of Belarus. Specif­i­cal­ly, we will exam­ine the treaties with­in the Shang­hai Coop­er­a­tion Orga­ni­za­tion (SCO) ded­i­cat­ed to com­bat­ing extrem­ism.

    SCO international agreements and “extremism”

    In July 2023, Belarus offi­cial­ly joined sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al treaties with­in the SCO frame­work. Of par­tic­u­lar rel­e­vance to this report are the 2006 Shang­hai Con­ven­tion on Com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism, Sep­a­ratism, and Extrem­ism, and the 2017 SCO Con­ven­tion on Com­bat­ing Extrem­ism. While there are no uni­ver­sal treaties on extrem­ism at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, these SCO Con­ven­tions can be con­sid­ered region­al inter­na­tion­al treaties.

    It’s worth not­ing that both Con­ven­tions should be read in con­junc­tion, as the lat­ter expands upon the under­stand­ing of extrem­ism devel­oped in the for­mer. Accord­ing to the 2017 SCO Con­ven­tion, «extrem­ism» refers to ide­ol­o­gy and prac­tices aimed at resolv­ing polit­i­cal, social, racial, nation­al, and reli­gious con­flicts through vio­lent and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al actions.

    One obser­va­tion to note is that the Con­ven­tion uses the term «extrem­ism» instead of «vio­lent extrem­ism». What is more, com­pared to the 2006 Shang­hai Con­ven­tion, which defined extrem­ism exclu­sive­ly through the lens of vio­lent actions, the new def­i­n­i­tion broad­ens the under­stand­ing of extrem­ism to include «oth­er uncon­sti­tu­tion­al actions,» imply­ing that non-vio­lent actions can also be con­sid­ered extrem­ist. The 2017 Con­ven­tion also lists a wide range of «extrem­ist acts», includ­ing pub­lic calls for extrem­ist acts, which must be crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed by mem­ber states. How­ev­er, there are con­cerns about the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the Con­ven­tion with states’ oblig­a­tions to respect free­dom of speech, as it crim­i­nal­izes expres­sions of opin­ion with­out requir­ing a link between the «call» and the risk of vio­lence.

    Fur­ther­more, even this def­i­n­i­tion of “extrem­ism” pro­vid­ed by the 2017 SCO Con­ven­tion does not lim­it the state in adopt­ing an even more vague def­i­n­i­tion at the nation­al lev­el. Accord­ing to Arti­cle 2, para­graph 2, of the Con­ven­tion, the defined terms «shall be with­out prej­u­dice to any … nation­al leg­is­la­tion which con­tain … a pro­vi­sion on a wider appli­ca­tion of terms and con­cepts used in this Arti­cle.» There­fore, Belarus’s acces­sion to these Con­ven­tions doesn’t oblige the state to lim­it its def­i­n­i­tion of “extrem­ism” to the lim­its con­tained in this treaty. On the oth­er hand, it’s essen­tial to empha­size the neg­a­tive aspect of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. The vague def­i­n­i­tion of extrem­ism out­lined with­in the SCO Con­ven­tion has become the “offi­cial” inter­na­tion­al stan­dard that Belarus is com­mit­ted to fol­low. As such, while Belarus may poten­tial­ly expand upon the con­cept of extrem­ism, it is not per­mit­ted to restrict or nar­row its inter­pre­ta­tion.

    The Law on Countering Extremism

    Since 2007, Belarus has imple­ment­ed the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism, pro­vid­ing a legal foun­da­tion for the state’s anti-extrem­ist pol­i­cy. Notably, the law’s objec­tives do not explic­it­ly include pre­vent­ing ter­ror­ism. This is sig­nif­i­cant con­sid­er­ing the inter­na­tion­al legal frame­work, which sug­gests that states should view extrem­ism pri­mar­i­ly in the con­text of its asso­ci­a­tion with ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty.

    Addi­tion­al­ly, while Arti­cle 3 of the law pri­or­i­tizes “rec­og­niz­ing and pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens’ rights and free­doms”, it also includes the prin­ci­ple of «pri­or­i­tiz­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus». This pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of nation­al secu­ri­ty over human rights rais­es con­cerns about the poten­tial for abus­es in the enforce­ment of anti-extrem­ist poli­cies.

    How­ev­er, among the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the law is the «pri­or­i­ty of pre­vent­ing offences aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing and address­ing the caus­es and con­di­tions that con­tribute to extrem­ist activ­i­ties.» The inter­na­tion­al legal frame­work rec­og­nizes the impor­tance of pre­ven­tive mea­sures aimed at address­ing the root caus­es of extrem­ism, mak­ing the reg­u­la­tion of this prin­ci­ple a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. Yet, despite this reg­u­la­tion, fur­ther exam­i­na­tion of the law reveals that it does not sub­stan­tial­ly address the top­ic of pre­ven­tive mea­sures. Instead, the key focus of the anti-extrem­ist pol­i­cy is on mea­sures to counter extrem­ism, main­ly relat­ed to respon­si­bil­i­ty for extrem­ist activ­i­ties.

    Def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism»

    To ana­lyze the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism, it is essen­tial to under­stand its def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism» as stat­ed in Arti­cle 1. This def­i­n­i­tion describes extrem­ism as activ­i­ties that involve plan­ning, orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing, and com­mit­ting assaults on the inde­pen­dence, ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty, sov­er­eign­ty, foun­da­tions of the con­sti­tu­tion­al order, and pub­lic safe­ty.

    This def­i­n­i­tion uses the term «extrem­ism» instead of «vio­lent extrem­ism» and includes over­ly broad and vague con­cepts with­out any ref­er­ence to vio­lent actions. There­fore, it lacks a frame­work that would ensure its con­sis­tent appli­ca­tion and enable cit­i­zens to under­stand the bound­aries of per­mis­si­ble behav­ior. In con­trast, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court of the Repub­lic of Belarus, eval­u­at­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the updat­ed 2021 ver­sion of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism, defines extrem­ism as an «ide­ol­o­gy and prac­tice of intol­er­ance and hatred, admit­ting the use of extreme mea­sures to achieve unlaw­ful goals.» Although imper­fect, this con­cept at least men­tions cri­te­ria of «hatred and intol­er­ance» and «use of extreme mea­sures» (which could be a dis­tant ref­er­ence to vio­lence). How­ev­er, even with this more restric­tive under­stand­ing of extrem­ism, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court found no con­tra­dic­tions between the Con­sti­tu­tion and the ana­lyzed law.

    It is impor­tant to note that the def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism» with­in the law encom­pass­es a wide range of non-vio­lent actions, includ­ing those direct­ly linked to free­dom of expres­sion. These actions include dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus, insult­ing author­i­ty fig­ures, incit­ing hatred, advo­cat­ing exclu­siv­i­ty, supe­ri­or­i­ty or infe­ri­or­i­ty, dis­trib­ut­ing extrem­ist mate­ri­als, and pub­licly call­ing for ille­gal ral­lies. Impor­tant­ly, the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of these deeds does not require any proof of a causal con­nec­tion between the expres­sion and sub­se­quent vio­lence.

    Fur­ther­more, the terms «extrem­ist organization/group» and «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» are inher­ent­ly linked to the vague and ill-defined con­cept of «extrem­ism». As a result, this con­cept lacks a coher­ent def­i­n­i­tion, lead­ing to over­ly broad inter­pre­ta­tions of these terms that con­tra­dict Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant, which sets out the cri­te­ri­on for the legit­i­ma­cy of restric­tions on free­dom of expres­sion. This pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant risk of vio­lat­ing indi­vid­u­als’ free­dom of expres­sion.

    In con­clu­sion, the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism is based on a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent under­stand­ing of extrem­ism than that defined by inter­na­tion­al law on vio­lent extrem­ism. This law con­tra­dicts inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of free­dom of expres­sion, and its broad inter­pre­ta­tion pro­vides the state with unlim­it­ed pow­er to apply «anti-extrem­ist mea­sures» for any polit­i­cal pur­pos­es.

    Chapter 2. The implementation of ‘anti-extremist’ measures on media, journalists, and their audience»

    Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion has imple­ment­ed var­i­ous mea­sures to com­bat «extrem­ism», which are used, inter alia, to per­se­cute inde­pen­dent media, their read­ers, and oth­er inter­act­ing enti­ties. These mea­sures include:

    ● Declar­ing media con­tent as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als»,

    ● Des­ig­nat­ing media and media orga­ni­za­tions as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions»,

    ● Crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for “extrem­ist activ­i­ty”,

    ● Inclu­sion in lists of indi­vid­u­als involved in «extrem­ist» and «ter­ror­ist» activ­i­ties, fol­lowed by restric­tions on rights.

    We will explore each mech­a­nism below and the effects of their appli­ca­tion on inde­pen­dent media, their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and audi­ences.

    1. STATUS OF «EXTREMIST MATERIALS»

    “The con­duct of an exam­i­na­tion of the mate­ri­als is deemed imprac­ti­ca­ble due to the man­i­fest clar­i­ty of the state­ments”

    The total num­ber of extrem­ist mate­ri­als as of 23.12.2023:

    As of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, the list con­tains 2849 mate­ri­als.

    As of Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022: 1794 mate­ri­als.

    The first com­po­nent of the «anti-extrem­ist» pol­i­cy involves declar­ing media resources as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» and block­ing them. This enables the pros­e­cu­tion of oth­er dis­trib­u­tors and con­sumers of the con­tent of these media for admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty and sub­se­quent pro­hi­bi­tion of the medi­a’s activ­i­ties.

    In the first half of 2023 alone, about 700 mate­ri­als were declared «extrem­ist». From July to Sep­tem­ber 2023, resources from at least ten media out­lets were added to the «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» list. Mir­ror web­sites of online media, accounts on all social net­works, and any pub­lic pages are blocked based on the detec­tion of «signs of extrem­ism» in sep­a­rate mate­ri­als, com­plete­ly cut­ting off access to the media and its prod­ucts. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of such exten­sive per­se­cu­tion is the result of the legal reg­u­la­tion and arbi­trary law enforce­ment prac­tices described below.

    A. Def­i­n­i­tion of «Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als»

    Accord­ing to the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism:

    «Extrem­ist mate­ri­als» are sym­bols, attrib­ut­es, and infor­ma­tion­al prod­ucts intend­ed for pub­lic dis­play, use, or dis­tri­b­u­tion — or already dis­trib­uted «for involve­ment in extrem­ist activ­i­ty and its pro­pa­gan­da.»

    First, the Law and its clar­i­fy­ing Reg­u­la­tion on the assess­ment of sym­bols, attrib­ut­es, and infor­ma­tion­al prod­ucts (here­after the Eval­u­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion[1]) col­lec­tive­ly cov­er all pos­si­ble forms of express­ing opin­ions. This includes text, video, and audio mate­ri­als, images, chat­bots, and entire web­sites — encom­pass­ing logos, water­marks, names of media, and por­traits of indi­vid­u­als con­vict­ed under «extrem­ist» arti­cles. Sec­ond, the def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» used in the Law is prone to arbi­trary inter­pre­ta­tion, call­ing into ques­tion the com­pli­ance of the reg­u­la­tion on rec­og­niz­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» with the «legal­i­ty» cri­te­ri­on estab­lished by Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant. The ini­tial­ly broad and abstract def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» is com­pound­ed by addi­tion­al broad con­cepts like «pro­pa­gan­da of extrem­ist activ­i­ty», requir­ing clear cri­te­ria for eval­u­a­tion to avoid arbi­trary restric­tions on free­dom of expres­sion. Such cri­te­ria are not pro­vid­ed in the leg­is­la­tion.

    • The con­cept of «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» in its present form does not meet the require­ment of clar­i­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty. It is not pos­si­ble to clear­ly define which con­tent can be deemed «extrem­ist».

    [1] Approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus dated 12.10.2021 N 575

    B. «Coun­ter­ing the pro­pa­gan­da of extrem­ism and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist mate­ri­als»

    i. Coun­ter­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mate­ri­als not yet rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist»

    The Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism in Belarus pro­vides mea­sures against poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous prod­ucts that are not yet rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» but con­tain «calls for an extrem­ist activ­i­ty or its pro­pa­gan­da[1]». Enti­ties involved in coun­ter­ing extrem­ism list­ed in Arti­cle 6 of the Law, includ­ing inter­nal affairs and state secu­ri­ty bod­ies, the pros­e­cu­tor’s office, and the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee are autho­rized[2] to seize and con­fis­cate such mate­ri­als. How­ev­er, there is a lack of clear cri­te­ria jus­ti­fy­ing such mea­sures before experts declare them «extrem­ist». For dig­i­tal media, the law per­mits the block­ing of inter­net resources by the deci­sion of the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor, the Region­al Pros­e­cu­tor or the pros­e­cu­tor of Min­sk city on sim­i­lar grounds[3]. Thus, access to an entire inter­net resource can be restrict­ed extra­ju­di­cial­ly based on the pros­e­cu­tor’s deci­sion, even before legal pro­ceed­ings to rec­og­nize the mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist.»

    The own­ers of blocked resources are noti­fied post-fac­to[4] with­out the chance to par­tic­i­pate in the deci­sion-mak­ing process. The list of blocked iden­ti­fiers is also not pub­lic and is acces­si­ble[5] only to spe­cif­ic autho­rized bod­ies and news aggre­ga­tors.

    The report made by the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of the right to free­dom of opin­ion and expres­sion serves as a reminder that the block­ing of resources is a vio­la­tion of state oblig­a­tions when car­ried out with­out clear reg­u­la­tion, a pro­ce­dure that weighs the inter­ests of all involved par­ties, and sub­se­quent judi­cial con­trol. The com­plete block­ing of web­sites is often deemed an exces­sive mea­sure, and lack­ing prop­er pro­ce­dure, it unequiv­o­cal­ly con­tra­dicts[6] the state’s oblig­a­tions regard­ing the free­dom of expres­sion.

    • The exist­ing extra­ju­di­cial pro­ce­dure for block­ing resources that are deemed to be spread­ing calls for «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» or its pro­pa­gan­da, as deter­mined by the pros­e­cu­tor, is arbi­trary and under­mines the free­dom of expres­sion stan­dards.

    [1] Article 19 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus dated 04.01.2007 N 203-Z "On Countering Extremism"
    [2] Article 19 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus dated 04.01.2007 N 203-Z "On Countering Extremism"
    [3] Article 51-1 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus dated 17.07.2008 N 427-Z "On Mass Media"
    [4] Paragraphs 6, 8 of the Regulations on the procedure for restricting (restoring) access to an internet resource, network publication, news aggregator, approved by the Resolution of the Operational Analytical Centre under the President of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus dated 03.10.2018 N 8/10/6
    [5] Ibid.
    [6] See the Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and “Fake News”, Disinformation, and Propaganda, paragraph 1-f (link), and the European Court of Human Rights decision in the case OOO Flavus and Others v. Russia, which, among other things, refers to the practice of the Human Rights Committee on this issue.

    ii. Pro­ce­dure for rec­og­niz­ing mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist»:

    Under Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion, the deter­mi­na­tion of mate­ri­als as “extrem­ist” does not involve media rep­re­sen­ta­tives as par­ties with legal rights and inter­ests need­ing pro­tec­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, the pro­ce­dur­al guar­an­tees typ­i­cal­ly found in lit­i­ga­tion do not apply in these cas­es. Instead, the law direct­ly pre­scribes a spe­cial pro­ce­dure for estab­lish­ing such facts. Typ­i­cal­ly, the involved par­ties are the appli­cant — “enti­ties coun­ter­ing extrem­ism”, rep­re­sent­ing state inter­ests in this case — and any inter­est­ed par­ties, should they be involved[1].

    In prac­tice, own­ers of resources and authors of mate­ri­als rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist» are gen­er­al­ly unable to par­tic­i­pate in pro­ceed­ings. Courts are held in closed ses­sions, and resource own­ers are not noti­fied of the process. The inabil­i­ty to be involved in the case as an inter­est­ed par­ty elim­i­nates the pos­si­bil­i­ty of appeal­ing the deci­sion rec­og­niz­ing mate­ri­als as “extrem­ist”. It is known that in process­es of rec­og­niz­ing mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist,» courts allow imme­di­ate imple­men­ta­tion of the deci­sion by Arti­cle 314 of the Civ­il Pro­ce­dure Code to «take addi­tion­al mea­sures to counter extrem­ism». How­ev­er, inter­na­tion­al human rights stan­dards dic­tate the neces­si­ty of con­sid­er­ing «extrem­ist cas­es» by inde­pen­dent courts in a law­suit pro­ce­dure with nec­es­sary guar­an­tees, includ­ing equal­i­ty of the par­ties and the adver­sar­i­al pro­ceed­ings.

    Analy­sis of avail­able deci­sions indi­cates that courts do not gen­er­al­ly eval­u­ate mate­ri­als inde­pen­dent­ly. Courts pre­dom­i­nant­ly rely on the con­clu­sion of the rel­e­vant[2] com­mis­sion for eval­u­at­ing sym­bols, attrib­ut­es, and infor­ma­tion­al prod­ucts to decide the case.

    The con­clu­sions of these com­mis­sions which include rep­re­sen­ta­tives of inter­nal affairs bod­ies[3] can hard­ly be regard­ed as “evi­dence” under the Civ­il Pro­ce­dure Code. This is pri­mar­i­ly due to the lim­it­ed cir­cle of indi­vid­u­als who may appeal to such com­mis­sions and chal­lenge their deci­sions. More­over, inter­est­ed par­ties in the eval­u­a­tion process are not afford­ed pro­ce­dur­al rights guar­an­tees. The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the activ­i­ties of these com­mis­sions only per­mit the par­tic­i­pa­tion of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of state bod­ies that have applied. As such, the def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism» itself includes an ele­ment of intent, includ­ing activ­i­ties … involv­ing plan­ning, orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing, and com­mit­ting assaults, as out­lined in Arti­cle 1 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism. For this rea­son, it is chal­leng­ing to estab­lish the “extrem­ist” nature of mate­ri­als with­out the involve­ment of media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, con­sid­er­a­tion of the broad­er con­text of the state­ment, and oth­er rel­e­vant cri­te­ria.

    It is also worth not­ing that media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are not enti­tled to appeal the con­clu­sions reached by these com­mis­sions. This pos­si­bil­i­ty is avail­able exclu­sive­ly for the bod­ies that applied to the com­mis­sions. Addi­tion­al­ly, the absence of inde­pen­dent judi­cial con­sid­er­a­tion of the «extrem­ist» nature of mate­ri­als fur­ther vio­lates the rights of authors and dis­trib­u­tors of con­tent to a fair tri­al since all legal mat­ters must be resolved exclu­sive­ly by the courts[4]. It is unac­cept­able for a court deci­sion in such mat­ters to rely sole­ly on expert con­clu­sions. Fur­ther­more, courts iden­ti­fy an entire inter­net resource as «extrem­ist mate­r­i­al» on dis­cov­er­ing an instance of «extrem­ism» in a sin­gle pub­li­ca­tion. This prac­tice has been repeat­ed­ly rec­og­nized by the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights as a vio­la­tion of free­dom of expres­sion due to the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of such mea­sures.

    The process of recog­ni­tion of the book enti­tled «Belaru­sian Nation­al Idea» as “extrem­ist” (described here) sheds light on the cur­rent prac­tice of the use of this mech­a­nism. The con­clu­sions of the com­mis­sions are mere­ly asser­tions of the pres­ence of «signs» of extrem­ism in cer­tain mate­ri­als, with­out a clear def­i­n­i­tion of these «signs» or clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the con­nec­tion between such “signs” and the con­tent of the mate­ri­als.

    • The pro­ce­dure for rec­og­niz­ing mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist» in its cur­rent form is incon­sis­tent with inter­na­tion­al human rights stan­dards on the «legal­i­ty» of inter­fer­ence. The pro­ce­dure is not trans­par­ent or pre­dictable, it ignores the con­tent of the assessed mate­ri­als, and fails to pro­vide inter­est­ed par­ties with ade­quate legal pro­tec­tion against arbi­trary actions of con­trol­ling bod­ies.

    • The recog­ni­tion process vio­lates the rights of media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, includ­ing their right to a fair tri­al. Recog­ni­tion is car­ried out through an accel­er­at­ed pro­ce­dure, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly hin­ders their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the case and sub­se­quent appeal of the deci­sion.

    [1] Article 362 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus dated 11.01.1999 N 238-Z
    [2] Paragraphs 3, 4 of the Regulations on the procedure for restricting (restoring) access to an internet resource, network publication, news aggregator, approved by the Resolution of the Operational Analytical Centre under the President of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus dated 03.10.2018 N 8/10/6.
    [3] See the composition of the Republican Commission for the most complex objects of evaluation in the Regulations on the procedure for restricting (restoring) access to an internet resource, network publication, news aggregator, approved by the Resolution of the Operational Analytical Centre under the President of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus dated 03.10.2018 N 8/10/6
    [4] See the relevant European Court of Human Rights decision in the case of Mariya Alekhina and Others v. Russia (para. 262).

    C. Con­se­quences of rec­og­niz­ing mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist»

    Arti­cle 19 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism pro­hibits the dis­tri­b­u­tion and pub­lic demon­stra­tion, as well as pro­duc­tion, pub­lish­ing, stor­age, and trans­porta­tion of «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» with the intent of dis­tri­b­u­tion. Vio­la­tions of this pro­hi­bi­tion are sub­ject to pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cle 19.11 of the Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offens­es (CoAO), which cov­ers the «dis­tri­b­u­tion, pro­duc­tion, stor­age, trans­porta­tion of infor­ma­tion­al prod­ucts con­tain­ing calls for extrem­ist activ­i­ty or pro­pa­gan­diz­ing such activ­i­ty». Notably, despite the law’s reg­u­la­tion requir­ing intent to dis­trib­ute when pro­duc­ing, stor­ing, or trans­port­ing the “mate­ri­als”, this require­ment is not prac­ti­cal­ly enforced. Con­se­quent­ly, the absence of a need to estab­lish the intent results in a prac­ti­cal ban on any actions involv­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als».

    i. Recognizing materials as «extremist» as an impediment to media activities

    First­ly, it’s a com­mon prac­tice to rec­og­nize a resource as “extrem­ist mate­ri­als” and then block it, espe­cial­ly if it was­n’t blocked before legal pro­ceed­ings.

    Sec­ond­ly, it’s impor­tant to under­stand that rec­og­niz­ing the prod­ucts of major media out­lets as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als,» whose prod­ucts were active­ly used by oth­er media, cre­ates the poten­tial for the sys­temic per­se­cu­tion of inde­pen­dent media. Rec­og­niz­ing the resources of Bel­sat, TUT.BY, and Zerkalo.io as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» in mid-2021 opened the way for block­ing (see B‑i) and/or sub­ject­ing to admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty for dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» for most inde­pen­dent media. This type of per­se­cu­tion is indeed imple­ment­ed, for exam­ple by restrict­ing access to Media-Polesye, Deutsche Welle, Cur­rent Time, and Novy Chas for dis­trib­ut­ing illus­tra­tions or hyper­links to resources pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied as «extrem­ist».

    The dis­tri­b­u­tion of “extrem­ist mate­ri­als” cov­ers as well men­tion­ing the names of the media already recog­nised as “extrem­ist” (since the list of such mate­ri­als includes the names of some of the “pro­hib­it­ed” media). At the same time, men­tion­ing the names of these media may be an ordi­nary com­pli­ance with copy­right require­ments. 

    Such prac­tices are pos­si­ble, in part, due to the retroac­tive appli­ca­tion of the norms of “anti-extrem­ist leg­is­la­tion”, includ­ing Arti­cle 19.11 of the CoAO. This allows treat­ing reposts and links made long before the resource’s recog­ni­tion as “extrem­ist” as dis­tri­b­u­tion of “extrem­ist mate­ri­als”. As of 2023, this prac­tice has been extend­ed to print­ed media arti­cles, some of which were pub­lished decades pri­or. The retroac­tive appli­ca­tion of increas­ing­ly strin­gent reg­u­la­tions vio­lates both nation­al leg­is­la­tion[1] and Belarus’s inter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments. This ren­ders it dif­fi­cult to con­sid­er mea­sures restrict­ing free­dom of expres­sion as sat­is­fy­ing the “legal­i­ty” cri­te­ri­on.

    The per­se­cu­tion of the region­al media Hrodna.life serves as an exam­ple of how inde­pen­dent media can be pres­sured to the point of orga­ni­za­tion liq­ui­da­tion through the recog­ni­tion of their pro­duc­tion as «extrem­ist».

    In March 2021, the edi­tor-in-chief was fined for dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» that had not been con­sid­ered as such at the time of dis­tri­b­u­tion. Lat­er, the site own­er and edi­tor received two more fines for the pho­to mis­tak­en­ly post­ed and prompt­ly removed. In July 2021, a Grod­no dis­trict court rec­og­nized the medi­a’s Telegram chan­nel as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» due to mes­sages incit­ing hatred and dis­cord found in com­ments, which were not post­ed by the chan­nel’s admin­is­tra­tion. The main edi­tor, Alek­sey Shot, man­aged to par­tic­i­pate in the tri­al but was only giv­en access to case mate­ri­als a day before the hear­ing. Alek­sey also request­ed a break to appeal the com­mis­sion’s find­ings, which report­ed­ly lacked a clear expert response as to the issue of the pres­ence of calls for extrem­ist activ­i­ty or its pro­pa­gan­da. The appeal was not sub­stan­tive­ly con­sid­ered, and the request for a break was denied.

    In August 2021, a court ulti­mate­ly liq­ui­dat­ed the orga­ni­za­tion LLC «Grod­no Life Media» due to the two pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned cas­es of admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty imposed on its staff.

    [1] Article 104 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus 1994

    ii. Recog­ni­tion of mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist» pos­es risks for con­tent con­sumers

    Arti­cle 19.11 of the CoAO is also applied to the audi­ence of media out­lets that con­tin­ue to read, share, and dis­cuss resources rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als».

    As not­ed, in the prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion of the law, the courts do not estab­lish the cru­cial aspect of inten­tion for qual­i­fy­ing actions under this arti­cle. For instance, if a mobile device con­tains links to media rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als,» it is pre­sumed that they are stored for the pur­pose of fur­ther dis­tri­b­u­tion. Accord­ing to law enforce­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, sub­scrib­ing to «extrem­ist» resources is not for­mal­ly a basis for lia­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, they note that «for­mal absence of an offence is no rea­son to ignore the vio­la­tor», thus dis­re­gard­ing the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence.

    The prac­tice of enforce­ment of the same norms, which are already sub­ject to arbi­trary inter­pre­ta­tion, changes over time, adding unpre­dictabil­i­ty to the reg­u­la­tion. As a result, it is dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to align their behav­ior with «anti-extrem­ist» leg­is­la­tion. For instance, sub­scrib­ing to an «extrem­ist» resource now also becomes a basis for admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty, unlike in 2021–2022.

    The term «dis­tri­b­u­tion» cov­ers a wide range of actions, such as lik­ing «pro­hib­it­ed» pub­li­ca­tions, for­ward­ing them in pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence, insert­ing hyper­links to «extrem­ist» resources, and pub­lish­ing pho­tos with water­marks of «extrem­ist» resources. The retroac­tive appli­ca­tion of the law also applies to the audi­ence of the media, result­ing in admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion for a «like» and a repost of a 2016 «Radio Svo­bo­da» pub­li­ca­tion, released five years before the resource was recog­nised as an «extrem­ist mate­r­i­al».

    Since the begin­ning of 2023, there has been a sig­nif­i­cant rise in the num­ber of cas­es where indi­vid­u­als are held account­able under CoAO Arti­cle 19.11 It’s worth men­tion­ing that courts are now impos­ing not just fines but admin­is­tra­tive arrests in addi­tion to con­fis­cat­ing per­son­al tech devices. Each repost is often treat­ed as a sep­a­rate admin­is­tra­tive offense, enabling the author­i­ties to pros­e­cute indi­vid­u­als an unlim­it­ed num­ber of times.

    For info­graph­ics:

    From June to Sep­tem­ber 2023, at least 184 peo­ple were detained for dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als.» As of Octo­ber 1, 2023, accord­ing to the court deci­sion data­base, 659 indi­vid­u­als were con­vict­ed from July to Sep­tem­ber 2023.

    This arti­cle has become a con­ve­nient tool for per­se­cu­tion, con­sid­er­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of almost all major media prod­ucts is pro­hib­it­ed. «Dis­tri­b­u­tion» is inter­pret­ed arbi­trar­i­ly broad­ly and has no time lim­i­ta­tions. Such prac­tices cre­ate an atmos­phere of intim­i­da­tion, where the pop­u­la­tion fears not only com­ment­ing on pub­li­ca­tions of inde­pen­dent resources, pub­licly dis­cussing, and shar­ing them, but even sim­ply read­ing them on their devices.

    For instance, admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty for «dis­trib­ut­ing» extrem­ist mate­ri­als was imposed when a mobile appli­ca­tion of Zerkalo.io media was shown to a police offi­cer upon request. Anoth­er case involves a per­son who was pur­sued under part 2 of Arti­cle 19.11 CoAP for a hid­den pub­li­ca­tion, despite the fact that the indi­vid­ual prompt­ly archived his post on Insta­gram to avoid it being clas­si­fied as “pub­lic” after the media whose logo was used in the pub­li­ca­tion was rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist”.

    The sheer com­plex­i­ty and cum­ber­some­ness of the list of «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» per se presents an obsta­cle to acces­si­bil­i­ty for cer­tain pop­u­la­tion groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who lack dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy. The time­ly track­ing of changes to this list, as well as time­ly destruc­tion of all pub­lic and per­son­al pub­li­ca­tions con­tain­ing “extrem­ist mate­ri­als” is bur­den­some for jour­nal­ists and read­ers alike, not to men­tion the ille­git­i­ma­cy of such require­ments.

    • Arbi­trary, retroac­tive recog­ni­tion of major media resources as “extrem­ist mate­ri­als” leads to the sys­tem­at­ic per­se­cu­tion of inde­pen­dent media. This per­se­cu­tion is exac­er­bat­ed by an unjus­ti­fi­ably broad list of pro­hib­it­ed objects for dis­tri­b­u­tion, includ­ing the names of media.

    • Arbi­trar­i­ly applied admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty norms result in a de fac­to ban on any actions asso­ci­at­ed with «extrem­ist mate­ri­als», such as stor­ing links on a phone, likes, com­ments, sub­scrip­tions, or repost­ing in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions, which vio­lates con­tent con­sumers’ free­dom of expres­sion.

    Con­clu­sion:

    The recog­ni­tion of mate­ri­als as «extrem­ist» cre­ates sig­nif­i­cant obsta­cles to the search, receipt, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of infor­ma­tion, unjus­ti­fi­ably lim­it­ing free­dom of expres­sion on sev­er­al fronts at once[1]. This mech­a­nism allows for mon­i­tor­ing and restrict­ing access to crit­i­cal expres­sions, there­by pre­vent­ing free pub­lic dis­cus­sion on key soci­etal issues. Con­se­quent­ly, media and con­tent con­sumers are forced to resort to self-cen­sor­ship, which is unac­cept­able[2].

    [1] See, among others, paragraphs 13, 23, 42 of the General Comment No. 34: link
    [2] See the European Court of Human Rights decisions in the cases Vajnai v. Hungary (para. 54), Altuğ Taner Akçam v. Turkey (paras. 68-83).

    2. Recog­ni­tion as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions»

    The sec­ond cru­cial mech­a­nism in coun­ter­ing «extrem­ism,» which is often used to per­se­cute inde­pen­dent media, involves the sta­tus of an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and its legal con­se­quences for both rec­og­nized enti­ties and those who inter­act with them.

    D. Def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist for­ma­tions»:

    Accord­ing to the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism, an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» is defined by the fol­low­ing qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures:

    • A group of cit­i­zens,

    • Engag­ing in «extrem­ist activ­i­ty»,

    • Or pro­vid­ing «oth­er assis­tance to extrem­ist activ­i­ty»,

    • Or rec­og­niz­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such activ­i­ty in their own actions,

    • Or financ­ing «extrem­ist activ­i­ty»,

    • Rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist» by the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs (MIA) or KGB.

    This def­i­n­i­tion does not add clar­i­ty or pre­dictabil­i­ty to “anti-extrem­ist” leg­is­la­tion, forc­ing legal enforcers to rely on the unrea­son­ably broad con­cept of “extrem­ist activ­i­ty”. Addi­tion­al­ly, they must also depend on the unspec­i­fied, open-to-arbi­trary-inter­pre­ta­tion con­cepts of “oth­er assis­tance” and “rec­og­niz­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such activ­i­ty in their own actions”.

    It also fails to iden­ti­fy who belongs to an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and who is sub­ject to legal con­se­quences, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant rights restric­tions and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for inter­act­ing with such for­ma­tions. These reg­u­la­to­ry imper­fec­tions demon­strate that the state’s inter­ven­tion in imple­ment­ing free­dom of expres­sion and asso­ci­a­tion through the sta­tus of «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» does not meet the cri­te­ri­on of «legal­i­ty».

    • The def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» is char­ac­ter­ized by vague phras­ing and does not clar­i­fy who con­sti­tutes the “for­ma­tion”.

    E. Recog­ni­tion as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of appeal

    The law has estab­lished an extra­ju­di­cial pro­ce­dure for grant­i­ng cer­tain groups of cit­i­zens this sta­tus. In Belarus, reg­is­tered orga­ni­za­tions can be pro­hib­it­ed from activ­i­ties by a court, as was the case with «TUT BY MEDIA» LLC, which was rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion». How­ev­er, for oth­er «groups of cit­i­zens», the MIA and KGB are autho­rized to make deci­sions to rec­og­nize them as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» and pro­hib­it their activ­i­ties.

    While the process of rec­og­niz­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» at least for­mal­ly involves the pos­si­bil­i­ty of obtain­ing expert opin­ions and court con­sid­er­a­tion, this pro­ce­dure is entire­ly arbi­trary. The cri­te­ria used by the MIA and KGB to make deci­sions are unknown, and the deci­sions are not made pub­lic or known to the affect­ed groups. Accord­ing to Arti­cle 15 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism, these bod­ies are autho­rized to iden­ti­fy actions of groups of cit­i­zens evi­denc­ing the above activ­i­ties. The only offi­cial source of infor­ma­tion is the «On mea­sures to counter extrem­ism and the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of Nazism» sec­tion in the news tab about the activ­i­ties of the MIA, where the MIA updates the List of orga­ni­za­tions, for­ma­tions, and indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neurs involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties. The extra­ju­di­cial nature of these deci­sions, with­out a clear­ly defined list of sit­u­a­tions in which con­trol­ling bod­ies are autho­rized to act, does not allow for con­sid­er­ing that such inter­fer­ence is in com­pli­ance with «pre­dictable and clear reg­u­la­tion». The lack of any guar­an­tees pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens from arbi­trary actions makes the inter­fer­ence ille­git­i­mate[1].

    Accord­ing to Arti­cle 15 of the Law, it is pos­si­ble to appeal a deci­sion to the MIA or a court. How­ev­er, exer­cis­ing this right is chal­leng­ing due to the absence of a mech­a­nism for obtain­ing infor­ma­tion about the grounds for includ­ing a spe­cif­ic group of cit­i­zens in the List. Addi­tion­al­ly, the List should be updat­ed with­in five work­ing days from the deci­sion, but it often takes at least a week for indi­vid­u­als to learn of it. At the same time, the law leaves only one month for appeal­ing the deci­sion from the date it is made.

    • Unde­fined “groups of cit­i­zens” are rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» through an opaque and arbi­trary extra­ju­di­cial pro­ce­dure. There is no for­mal require­ment for their activ­i­ties to be eval­u­at­ed by experts and an inde­pen­dent court.

    • The rights of affect­ed indi­vid­u­als are fur­ther vio­lat­ed as they lack time­ly access to infor­ma­tion about the pro­ce­dure as stip­u­lat­ed by law, includ­ing the grounds for per­se­cu­tion, and effec­tive legal pro­tec­tion.

    [1]See the European Court of Human Rights decisions in the cases Karastelev and Others v. Russia (para. 79): link, Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia (paras. 159, 242)

    F. Prac­tice of rec­og­niz­ing media as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions

    Dur­ing 2022–2023, at least 19 media out­lets, along with the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter, were rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» or «extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions». The List of orga­ni­za­tions, for­ma­tions, and indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neurs involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties now includes major Belaru­sian media, «samiz­dat» (self-pub­lished works), and region­al pub­li­ca­tions. Con­cerns regard­ing the acces­si­bil­i­ty of this list to the pop­u­la­tion apply here (see Sec­tion C‑ii).

    The des­ig­na­tion of media as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» can trig­ger mea­sures to counter their activ­i­ties, includ­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, based on the arti­cles pro­vid­ed:

    • Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (Cre­ation of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion or par­tic­i­pa­tion there­in, pun­ish­able by up to ten years’ impris­on­ment),

    • Arti­cle 361–2 (Financ­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties, pun­ish­able by up to eight years’ impris­on­ment),

    • Arti­cle 361–4 (Assist­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties, pun­ish­able by up to sev­en years’ impris­on­ment).

    All these arti­cles are active­ly used to cre­ate obsta­cles for inde­pen­dent media activ­i­ties, per­se­cut­ing those who inter­act with them and their read­ers. Each of these arti­cles, like those relat­ed to inter­act­ing with «extrem­ist mate­ri­als», may have retroac­tive force.

    More­over, indi­vid­u­als and legal enti­ties regard­ed as par­tic­i­pants or pro­pri­etors of an «extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion» can face con­se­quences such as a five-year ban on estab­lish­ing media from the date of the court deci­sion on the liq­ui­da­tion of the «extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion»[1].

    [1] Article 10 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus dated 17.07.2008 N 427-Z "On Mass Media"

    i. Prac­tice of pros­e­cut­ing jour­nal­ists under Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (Cre­ation of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion or par­tic­i­pa­tion there­in)

    The ret­ro­spec­tive appli­ca­tion of this arti­cle per­mits, among oth­er things, the per­se­cu­tion of for­mer employ­ees and indi­vid­u­als who had inter­ac­tions with the media pri­or to its des­ig­na­tion as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”.

    An exam­ple of this mech­a­nism can be seen in the per­se­cu­tion of the inde­pen­dent news agency «Bela­pan.» In August 2021, dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of a crim­i­nal case under Arti­cle 342[1] of the Crim­i­nal Code, search­es were con­duct­ed at the agen­cy’s office and employ­ees’ homes. Equip­ment was seized, agency web­sites were blocked, and some jour­nal­ists were detained. On Novem­ber 1, 2021, the KGB issued a deci­sion rec­og­niz­ing a «group of cit­i­zens among the employ­ees of Bela­pan» as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and pro­hibit­ing its activ­i­ties. How­ev­er, infor­ma­tion about this KGB deci­sion did not appear in the cor­re­spond­ing list for at least a week. Con­sid­er­ing the spe­cif­ic lan­guage used in the List, it seems rea­son­able to con­clude that poten­tial crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion could only affect cur­rent agency employ­ees regard­ing their activ­i­ties after being rec­og­nized as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion».

    Despite this, charges were lat­er brought against the agen­cy’s direc­tor Iry­na Leushy­na, for­mer direc­tor Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau, and Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, a for­mer employ­ee at the time of his deten­tion. They were ini­tial­ly arrest­ed under oth­er arti­cles of the Crim­i­nal Code, but lat­er were charged under Arti­cle 361–1. These process­es reflect the over­all legal default, includ­ing an imbal­ance in cov­er­age of the pro­ceed­ings. While the accused’s lawyers are under a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment, which is often used arbi­trar­i­ly to lim­it access to case infor­ma­tion, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee pub­lish­es its ver­sion of events. Accord­ing to it, the news agency is accused of «covert financ­ing [of its activ­i­ties] by for­eign orga­ni­za­tions» and «cre­at­ing a YouTube chan­nel spe­cial­iz­ing in strength­en­ing destruc­tive and extrem­ist sen­ti­ments in the coun­try, as well as dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus on the inter­na­tion­al are­na». Com­pe­tent author­i­ties have not clar­i­fied how these accu­sa­tions jus­ti­fy rec­og­niz­ing the entire agency as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and its for­mer employ­ees as «par­tic­i­pants» in this for­ma­tion.

    Sim­i­lar cas­es of per­se­cu­tion include those of Iri­na Slavniko­va and Andrei Kuznechyk, who were accused of col­lab­o­rat­ing with resources that were rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” after the jour­nal­ists’ deten­tion.

    This per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists and for­mer media employ­ees shines a light on the prob­lem­at­ic issue of «anti-extrem­ist leg­is­la­tion»:

    • First­ly, the def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist for­ma­tion», which is broad and vague, is based on an equal­ly blur­ry def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ist activ­i­ty». These unclear def­i­n­i­tions, cou­pled with the ret­ro­spec­tive appli­ca­tion of the law, make it dif­fi­cult to deter­mine which actions may fall under the rel­e­vant arti­cles. This rais­es con­cerns about an indi­vid­u­al’s aware­ness of their (ret­ro­spec­tive) involve­ment in «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» or an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion”.

    • Sec­ond­ly, how­ev­er, in prac­tice, the neces­si­ty of estab­lish­ing intent is often ignored. Hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, this could nar­row the scope of those pros­e­cut­ed. Instead, the pro­ce­dure of “group­ing” indi­vid­u­als into enti­ties alleged­ly asso­ci­at­ed with ‘extrem­ism’ becomes com­plete­ly arbi­trary.

    In 2023, the des­ig­na­tion of media as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» became more per­va­sive. Recent exam­ples of per­se­cu­tion demon­strate that this tool is used increas­ing­ly fre­quent­ly, with less time pass­ing between the recog­ni­tion of media as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» and the deten­tion of jour­nal­ists and their asso­ciates. The cas­es of «Ranak» TV chan­nel and Mogilev media list­ed below are indica­tive.

    As per human rights defend­ers sources, pres­sure on Ranak may have arisen due to a sto­ry on an emer­gency inci­dent at the Svet­l­o­gorsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which this TV com­pa­ny cov­ered first. Human rights defend­ers report that in June 2023, eight chan­nel employ­ees were detained for sub­scrib­ing to «extrem­ist mate­ri­als,» How­ev­er, the resource they alleged­ly sub­scribed to is not on the cor­re­spond­ing List. With­in a month, the chan­nel’s resources were deemed «extrem­ist mate­ri­als». In Sep­tem­ber 2023, the TV com­pa­ny was rec­og­nized as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion.» The «name of for­ma­tion <…>, par­tic­i­pan­t’s full name» sec­tion of the cor­re­spond­ing List only men­tions «Ranak Chat,» but does not clar­i­fy the poten­tial par­tic­i­pants of this «extrem­ist for­ma­tion».

    In Decem­ber, anoth­er round of inter­ro­ga­tions and deten­tions of for­mer media com­pa­ny employ­ees occurred. Jour­nal­ist Lyud­mi­la Andenko and for­mer edi­tor-in-chief Yulia Dovle­to­va were charged under Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code. The MIA alleges that they admin­is­tered a Telegram group which “pub­lished infor­ma­tion aimed at orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing, and com­mit­ting mass riots, and resist­ing law enforce­ment offi­cers with the intent of encroach­ing on inde­pen­dence, ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty, and the foun­da­tions of the con­sti­tu­tion­al order”. It’s not­ed that the jour­nal­ists also dis­sem­i­nat­ed their “destruc­tive views” through the TV and radio com­pa­ny’s infor­ma­tion resources.

    On Novem­ber 29, the KGB rec­og­nized three Mogilev media out­lets as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” in one deci­sion: 6TV Belarus, Mogilev Media, and News of the Mogilev Region. In 2021, The Main Direc­torate for Com­bat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs (GUBOPiK) pur­sued 6TV Belarus by search­ing and seiz­ing equip­ment in the edi­to­r­i­al office. They pres­sured the edi­tor-in-chief to dis­able the web­site, threat­en­ing pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cles 342 and 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code for pro­duc­ing video pro­grams about the police. In 2023, this resource was also labeled as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”. The recog­ni­tion of the oth­er two media out­lets led to a series of search­es. This affect­ed sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing those who inter­act­ed with these resources. For exam­ple, jour­nal­ist Sergey Antonov was detained. Reports indi­cate that pres­sure on him began in ear­ly Decem­ber. He was sum­moned to the KGB, where he was pre­sent­ed with doc­u­ments alleged­ly prov­ing his work for the por­tal mogilev.media, already rec­og­nized as an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion,’ and was pres­sured to con­fess to work­ing for this media out­let. Even­tu­al­ly, the jour­nal­ist man­aged to leave the coun­try.

    The pros­e­cu­tion of Ivan Muravy­ov demon­strates that legal enforcers con­sid­er any con­nec­tion between the per­se­cut­ed indi­vid­ual and the media as suf­fi­cient grounds for action. A free­lance jour­nal­ist was sen­tenced to two and a half years of impris­on­ment under Part 3 of Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the “extrem­ist for­ma­tion” Bel­sat. This involve­ment includ­ed an episode where he filmed a video for an inves­ti­ga­tion by jour­nal­ist Stanislav Ivashke­vich, which was broad­cast on the chan­nel in July 2022

    In prac­tice, sub­scribers to these resources are also con­sid­ered “par­tic­i­pants” in “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”. This sug­gests that legal enforcers arbi­trar­i­ly assume it to be some form of assis­tance to the resource, mere­ly based on a per­son­’s desire to be informed about its updates. This is not to men­tion the base­less pre­sump­tion that sub­scribers under­stand the resource engages in “extrem­ist activ­i­ty”. Such prac­tices lead to the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als grouped togeth­er, not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­nect­ed, whose actions might not show signs of “extrem­ist activ­i­ty”. This is based sole­ly on their pre­sumed mem­ber­ship in an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”.

    [1] "Organization and preparation of actions grossly violating public order, or active participation in them".

    ii. Prac­tice of pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code (Assis­tance to extrem­ist activ­i­ties)

    The dis­tinc­tion between those active­ly involved with «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» and those who sup­port them is becom­ing increas­ing­ly blurred, accord­ing to state media reports. For instance, in August of 2023, Belta cau­tioned that any­one who shared infor­ma­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of an as-yet-uniden­ti­fied «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» would be con­sid­ered a par­tic­i­pant of such a group.

    Since 2022, indi­vid­u­als who are not reg­u­lar employ­ees but col­lab­o­rate with media out­lets rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions» have been tar­get­ed under Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code for trans­mit­ting any kind of infor­ma­tion, includ­ing:

    • Pho­tos and videos (see the case of jour­nal­ist Yury Gontsare­vich, who was pros­e­cut­ed for dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion about the real sit­u­a­tion in a spe­cif­ic region).

    • Giv­ing inter­views (see the per­se­cu­tion of Yahor Lebi­adok and Darya Losik).

    In 2023, author­i­ties began to pros­e­cute not only experts but also ordi­nary cit­i­zens who pro­vid­ed inter­views or com­ments to «extrem­ist» media out­lets.

    iii. Prac­tice of pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cle 361–2 of the Crim­i­nal Code (Financ­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties)

    Arti­cle 361–2 of the Crim­i­nal Code per­mits the pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als who inter­act with media or media orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”. This includes those who made finan­cial or mate­r­i­al dona­tions, even pri­or to the recog­ni­tion of these orga­ni­za­tions as extrem­ist. How­ev­er, there is no evi­dence that courts thor­ough­ly eval­u­ate whether such actions are con­sid­ered «delib­er­ate facil­i­ta­tion of extrem­ist activ­i­ty» as out­lined in this crim­i­nal arti­cle.

    • Most major inde­pen­dent media out­lets have been labeled as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions», and this tac­tic is becom­ing increas­ing­ly preva­lent;

    • The arbi­trary nature of the deci­sion to rec­og­nize a group as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» infringes on media free­dom, result­ing in the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of founders, employ­ees, and even read­ers who have inter­act­ed with the media;

    • The vague lan­guage in the law leaves room for inter­pre­ta­tion, mak­ing it unclear who may be sub­ject to per­se­cu­tion and ampli­fy­ing the issue of unpre­dictabil­i­ty in the enforce­ment of «anti-extrem­ist» leg­is­la­tion;

    • The crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion process is arbi­trary and fre­quent­ly applied retroac­tive­ly.

    Conclusion:

    As evi­denced by the prac­tice, this sys­tem allows deci­sion-mak­ing bod­ies to arbi­trar­i­ly group cit­i­zens for their con­ve­nience. Indi­vid­u­als can be pros­e­cut­ed based sole­ly on pre­sumed affil­i­a­tions, which are broad­ly defined as any type of con­nec­tion to these groups. Often, it’s unclear whether those involved are aware of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in “extrem­ist activ­i­ties” or if they intend to sup­port them. As a result, involve­ment in an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion’ — espe­cial­ly before an offi­cial recog­ni­tion of a group — makes it dif­fi­cult to pre­dict legal con­se­quences.

    The vague lan­guage in the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism and relat­ed Crim­i­nal Code arti­cles, com­bined with the prac­tice of arbi­trary and retroac­tive crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, vio­lates the state’s duty to pro­tect free­dom of expres­sion. This approach direct­ly con­tra­dicts Arti­cle 15 of the Covenant, which pro­hibits pun­ish­ment with­out [recent­ly — “a clear­ly defined”][1] law. The sever­i­ty of sanc­tions and the over­all legal uncer­tain­ty, which includes a lack of fair­ness and inde­pen­dence in the courts, elim­i­nate any legit­i­mate use of the mech­a­nism to rec­og­nize a group as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”.

    Con­se­quent­ly, the state fails to uphold its oblig­a­tions to ensure free media oper­a­tion with­out cen­sor­ship or restric­tions in exchang­ing infor­ma­tion between media and infor­ma­tion sources[2]. Media labeled as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions” face restric­tions in inter­ac­tions, includ­ing access­ing essen­tial infor­ma­tion for time­ly event cov­er­age and receiv­ing finan­cial or oth­er sup­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Belarus.

    [1] See ICCPR Commentary, Paul M. Taylor: "Principles of nulla poena sine lege certa (no punishment without clear law) are now emerging more discernibly in Committee jurisprudence, for example, when attacking as a fair trial matter criminal legislation formulated in a broad and vague fashion that is susceptible to wide interpretation, and does not comply with the principle of legal certainty and predictability".
    [2] See paragraphs 13, 14 of the General Comment No. 34: link

    3. Indi­vid­ual per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists: lists of «extrem­ists» and «ter­ror­ists»

    Indi­vid­ual per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists pri­mar­i­ly aris­es from the reper­cus­sions of the first two mech­a­nisms. These include admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty for dis­tri­b­u­tion «extrem­ist mate­ri­als», or crim­i­nal charges for cre­at­ing, par­tic­i­pat­ing in, or aid­ing «extrem­ist for­ma­tions.» More­over, jour­nal­ists face per­se­cu­tion for activ­i­ties that sig­nif­i­cant­ly inter­sect with a broad range of actions defined as «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» under Arti­cle 1 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism. In such cas­es, the «anti-extrem­ist» leg­is­la­tion’s sig­nif­i­cant impact is the label­ing of jour­nal­ists as «per­sons engaged in extrem­ist activ­i­ty» and/or «per­sons engaged in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty,» lead­ing to their inclu­sion in cor­re­spond­ing lists. How­ev­er, the over­all vague­ness of both «extrem­ist» and «ter­ror­ist» activ­i­ties, along with com­mon ele­ments for both lists, does not allow a clear dis­tinc­tion between the two sta­tus­es, nor the ratio­nale and grounds for assign­ing each.

    G. Grounds and pro­ce­dure for assign­ing the sta­tus of «per­son involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ty,» «per­son involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty»

    i. «Extrem­ist» list:

    • Grounds for inclu­sion — a final ver­dict for «extrem­ist» offences under the Crim­i­nal Code that align with acts out­lined in Arti­cle 1 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism[1].

    • Grounds for exclu­sion — doc­u­ment­ed proof of death or the pass­ing of five years since the crim­i­nal record was erased or removed[2].

    • Even after removal, those on the list may face lim­i­ta­tions on teach­ing, pub­lish­ing, and hold­ing pub­lic office for an addi­tion­al five years[3].

    • Dis­trib­ut­ing images of list­ed indi­vid­u­als is con­sid­ered «extrem­ist mate­r­i­al» and is pro­hib­it­ed with legal con­se­quences[4].

    The lack of clar­i­ty in the def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism» and the absence of vio­lence-relat­ed risk in some list­ed offens­es raise doubts about the legit­i­ma­cy of the list itself. Inclu­sion in the list can lead to polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed pros­e­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists under «extrem­ist» arti­cles and lim­it their free­dom of expres­sion, vio­lat­ing Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant.

    [1] Paragraph 1.2 of Resolution №575.
    [2] Article 18 of the Law on Countering Extremism.
    [3] Ibid.
    [4] Article 18 of the Law on Countering Extremism.

    ii. «Ter­ror­ist» list:

    • Grounds for inclu­sion, among oth­ers[1] include a final court ver­dict includ­ing «extrem­ist» arti­cles of the Crim­i­nal Code, as well as an indict­ment for cer­tain offens­es, such as Arti­cle 130 (Incite­ment of racial, nation­al, reli­gious, or oth­er social hatred or dis­cord);

    • The leg­is­la­tion falls short in pro­vid­ing a def­i­nite list of reper­cus­sions for those includ­ed, but pri­mar­i­ly results in lim­i­ta­tions on the per­son­’s capac­i­ty to con­duct civ­il trans­ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing non-cash forms of pay­ment.

    It is impor­tant to note that being includ­ed on the «ter­ror­ist» list is based on crim­i­nal offens­es, includ­ing non-vio­lent actions such as Arti­cle 361 of the Crim­i­nal Code (calls for sanc­tions), Arti­cle 130 (incite­ment of hatred), Arti­cle 130–1 (reha­bil­i­ta­tion of Nazism), Arti­cle 130–2 (denial of the geno­cide of the Belaru­sian peo­ple). Arti­cle 3 of the Law on Coun­ter­ing Ter­ror­ism also con­sid­ers «pro­pa­gan­da of ter­ror­ist ideas» and “the dis­tri­b­u­tion and pro­vi­sion of mate­ri­als and infor­ma­tion call­ing for or jus­ti­fy­ing the need for ter­ror­ism” as equiv­a­lent to ter­ror­ism itself. How­ev­er, these grounds for inclu­sion do not nec­es­sar­i­ly indi­cate any involve­ment in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty. As a result, includ­ing Arti­cles 130, 130–1, 130–2, and 361 of the Crim­i­nal Code on the «ter­ror­ist» list appears arbi­trary and vio­lates the right to free­dom of expres­sion under Arti­cle 19of the Covenant. Addi­tion­al­ly, the process of inclu­sion allows for indi­vid­u­als who have only been accused of such crimes to be list­ed, ignor­ing the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence and vio­lat­ing the right to a fair tri­al out­lined in Arti­cle 14 of the Covenant.

    As of the time of this report, it has been observed that a min­i­mum of 33 jour­nal­ists who have been per­se­cut­ed in 2023 have been added to the «extrem­ist list,» while at least 12 have been added to the «ter­ror­ist list.» A thor­ough analy­sis of the prac­tice of being includ­ed in both lists has revealed that jour­nal­ists typ­i­cal­ly find them­selves on the first list after fac­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cles 361–1 and 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code. Addi­tion­al­ly, there have been instances where jour­nal­ists have been con­vict­ed under the «protest» Arti­cle 342 (Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions gross­ly dis­turb­ing pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them), Arti­cle 369–1 (Dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus), and Arti­cle 130 (Incite­ment of racial, nation­al, reli­gious, or oth­er social hatred or dis­cord), result­ing in their inclu­sion on this list.

    The major­i­ty of jour­nal­ists on the «ter­ror­ist list» are either con­vict­ed or accused (at the time of list­ing) of incit­ing hatred, often in cas­es involv­ing pub­lish­ing crit­i­cal mate­ri­als. Such sit­u­a­tions, as exem­pli­fied by Gen­nady Mozheyko, Sergey Sat­suk, and Andrzej Poc­zobut, sur­pass the per­mis­si­ble restric­tions under Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant.

    • The inclu­sion of jour­nal­ists in both lists appears to stem from arbi­trary polit­i­cal motives;

    • The «ter­ror­ist list» may include indi­vid­u­als who have only been accused, dis­re­gard­ing the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence;

    • There seems to be no rea­son­able link between the list­ed crimes and the labels of «extrem­ism» and «ter­ror­ism,» result­ing in arbi­trary lim­i­ta­tions of jour­nal­ists’ rights after their inclu­sion. Labelling jour­nal­ists as such essen­tial­ly amounts to unwar­rant­ed[2] pun­ish­ment for per­form­ing their law­ful pro­fes­sion­al duties.

    [1] See paragraph 5 of the Regulation on the procedure for determining the list of organizations and individuals, including individual entrepreneurs, involved in terrorist activities, challenging the decision to include an organization, individual, including individual entrepreneur, in such a list, and reviewing other appeals of these organizations, individual, including individual entrepreneur, bringing this list to the attention of persons performing financial operations, and the financial monitoring authority, approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus dated 30.12.2014 N 1256
    [2] Paragraph 46 of the General Comment No. 34: link

    Conclusions and recommendations

    The exam­i­na­tion of legal mea­sures aimed at coun­ter­ing extrem­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rela­tion to inde­pen­dent media and jour­nal­ists in Belarus, expos­es a clear dis­re­gard by author­i­ties for inter­na­tion­al stan­dards of free­dom of expres­sion and media inde­pen­dence. The state’s def­i­n­i­tion of «extrem­ism» goes beyond the UN’s def­i­n­i­tion of vio­lent extrem­ism lead­ing to ter­ror­ism, and instead serves as a tool for repres­sion that does not adhere to basic legal prin­ci­ples.

    The anti-extrem­ist laws that form the foun­da­tion of state pol­i­cy in this area are over­ly broad and lack clear def­i­n­i­tions, leav­ing room for unpre­dictable inter­pre­ta­tion and focus­ing on “pun­ish­ment” rather than pre­ven­tion. In addi­tion, nation­al legal reg­u­la­tions suf­fer from “pro­ce­dur­al” flaws that lack trans­paren­cy and put the guar­an­tees for legal pro­tec­tion at risk. This leads to the con­clu­sion that the Law on Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism essen­tial­ly does not qual­i­fy as a law with­in the mean­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights. Any infringe­ment on rights and free­doms result­ing from its imple­men­ta­tion is auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered a vio­la­tion.

    The arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of «anti-extrem­ist» mea­sures against inde­pen­dent media and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives cre­ates an envi­ron­ment where legit­i­mate jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties are effec­tive­ly out­lawed. Des­ig­nat­ing media out­lets as «extrem­ist» not only deprivesdeprive them of the abil­i­ty to access infor­ma­tion sources with­in the coun­try, dis­trib­ute their con­tent, and receive fund­ing, but it also pos­es a seri­ous threat to the safe­ty of jour­nal­ists who risk crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. This prac­tice fun­da­men­tal­ly under­mines free­dom of speech, par­tic­u­lar­ly jour­nal­ists’ rights to obtain and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion, as well as media free­dom, reg­u­lat­ed by Arti­cle 19 of the Covenant.

    More­over, the vic­tims of this pol­i­cy are not only the media and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but also the audi­ence of inde­pen­dent media who are deprived of their right to access media con­tent, a cru­cial ele­ment of free­dom of expres­sion. Addi­tion­al­ly, since “anti-extrem­ist” mea­sures are applied dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly and do not affect state media, which remains under total gov­ern­men­tal con­trol, the range of “legal” infor­ma­tion sources on socio-polit­i­cal affairs for Belaru­sian audi­ences is restrict­ed. These sources are lim­it­ed to only avail­able state pro­pa­gan­da out­lets that fre­quent­ly resort to mis­in­for­ma­tion and hate speech. Con­cur­rent­ly, it is a wide­ly rec­og­nized issue that the state turns a blind eye to its own “media’s” bla­tant dis­re­gard for leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sions. Fur­ther­more, the sit­u­a­tion is exac­er­bat­ed by the prac­ti­cal impos­si­bil­i­ty for inde­pen­dent media, jour­nal­ists, and their read­ers to pro­tect their vio­lat­ed rights due to the absence of an inde­pen­dent judi­cia­ry in Belarus.

    The inescapable con­clu­sion is that the state’s approach to com­bat­ing «extrem­ism» against media and jour­nal­ists infringes upon both its own Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al human rights com­mit­ments, which Belarus has vol­un­tar­i­ly adopt­ed.

    The present report puts for­ward rec­om­men­da­tions based on the pre­vi­ous obser­va­tions:

    1. Imme­di­ate release of all media rep­re­sen­ta­tives pros­e­cut­ed for law­ful­ly exer­cis­ing their free­dom of expres­sion.

    2. Imme­di­ate release of all indi­vid­u­als pros­e­cut­ed for inter­act­ing with inde­pen­dent media rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist for­ma­tions».

    3. Abo­li­tion of the main­te­nance of the List of Cit­i­zens of the Repub­lic of Belarus, for­eign cit­i­zens, or state­less per­sons involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ty and the List of orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty.

    4. Abo­li­tion of the main­te­nance of the List of orga­ni­za­tions, for­ma­tions, and indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neurs involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ty.

    5. Abo­li­tion of the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als and repeal of the Res­o­lu­tion of the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters of the Repub­lic of Belarus «On Main­te­nance and Pub­li­ca­tion of the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als» dat­ed April 23, 2007, No. 513.

    6. Restora­tion of access to the inter­net resources of inde­pen­dent media blocked due to the appli­ca­tion of «anti-extrem­ist» mea­sures.

    7. Ter­mi­na­tion of the prac­tice of arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of mea­sures to counter extrem­ism against media, their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and read­ers.

    8. Pro­vi­sion of effec­tive legal pro­tec­tion for all vic­tims of arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of anti-extrem­ist pol­i­cy.

    9. Repeal of the Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus «On Coun­ter­ing Extrem­ism» dat­ed Jan­u­ary 4, 2007, No. 203‑Z.

    10. Denun­ci­a­tion of the Shang­hai Con­ven­tion on Com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism, Sep­a­ratism, and Extrem­ism dat­ed June 15, 2001, and the Shang­hai Coop­er­a­tion Orga­ni­za­tion Con­ven­tion on Com­bat­ing Extrem­ism dat­ed June 9, 2017.

    11. Removal of Arti­cles 361–1 (Cre­ation of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion or par­tic­i­pa­tion there­in), 361–2 (Financ­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty), 361–4 (Assist­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties), and 361–5 (Under­go­ing train­ing or oth­er prepa­ra­tion for par­tic­i­pa­tion in extrem­ist activ­i­ty) from the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

    12. Elim­i­na­tion of Arti­cle 19.11 (Dis­tri­b­u­tion, pro­duc­tion, stor­age, trans­porta­tion of infor­ma­tion­al prod­ucts con­tain­ing calls for extrem­ist activ­i­ty or pro­pa­gan­diz­ing such activ­i­ty) from the Admin­is­tra­tive Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

    13. Devel­op­ment and adop­tion of a Nation­al Plan of Action to Pre­vent Vio­lent Extrem­ism Lead­ing to Ter­ror­ism based on the Unit­ed Nations Plan of Action to Pre­vent Vio­lent Extrem­ism.

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