EAC launches wide-sweeping seizure of independent media domain names

In recent days, sev­er­al edi­to­r­i­al offices of online pub­li­ca­tions rec­og­nized by Belaru­sian courts as “extrem­ist con­tent” have received notices that their domain names with the .by exten­sion are no longer valid.

Pho­to: ana­log­i­cus for pexels.com

New domain names

The Exec­u­tive and Ana­lyt­i­cal Cen­ter under the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus is report­ed to be send­ing out notices pur­suant to its own April 4 order to can­cel Belaru­sian domain names for sites includ­ed in the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als. This list is updat­ed on the web­site of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion accord­ing to court deci­sions.

The EAC order was pub­lished on April 9, 2024. Some edi­to­r­i­al offices have already man­aged to trans­fer their pub­li­ca­tions to the new domain names.

The Reform.by edi­to­r­i­al board was the first to report about the can­cel­la­tion of its domain name. This media out­let was recent­ly includ­ed in the “extrem­ist list” – on March 21, 2024, fol­low­ing the deci­sion of the Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Brest. The edi­tors were pre­pared for such devel­op­ments and set up a new web­site with a dif­fer­ent domain name, reform.news.

The same was done by the edi­to­r­i­al staff of Medi­a­zona Belarus. The Inter­net resource mediazona.by, rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist” by the deci­sion of the Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Hrod­na on May 20, 2022, con­tin­ues to work at the address mediazonaby.com. The Media-Polesye region­al media web­site (media-polesye.by), includ­ed in the “extrem­ist list” on April 5, 2022 by the deci­sion of the Luninets Dis­trict Court of Brest Region, has now been re-reg­is­tered as media-polesye.com.

Some online pub­li­ca­tions have not informed their read­ers of the switch to anoth­er domain name, which has result­ed in some sites being sim­ply inac­ces­si­ble. For instance, the online news out­lets stolin.by (“Stolin”), baranovichi.by (“Bara­novichi ”), and luniniets.by (“Luninets”) were des­ig­nat­ed as “extrem­ist” on Feb­ru­ary 16 of this year by the deci­sion of the Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Brest.

Who else is on the list?

As of today, in addi­tion to the media out­lets pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als includes the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion sites with a .by exten­sion:

- tut.by (online news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on August 13, 2021);

- baj.by (web­site of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists des­ig­nat­ed as extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on June 8, 2023);

- brestnote.by (Brest region­al pub­li­ca­tion Brest­Note, des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on April 10, 2024);

- intex-press.by (web­site of a Baranavichy online news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on April 29, 2023);

- ex-press.by (a Barysau online news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2023);

- borisovnews.by (the web­site of the Borisovskie Novosti pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Novem­ber 12, 2021);

- belaruspartisan.by (the web­site of the Belorusskiy Par­ti­zan online news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Novem­ber 12, 2021);

- b‑g.by (the web­site of the Brest­skaya Gaze­ta pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Novem­ber 26, 2021);

- 1reg.by (Per­shy Rehi­jon news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Decem­ber 27, 2021);

- 6tv.by (Mahilou news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Feb­ru­ary 2, 2022);

- rh.by (the web­site of the Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Jan­u­ary 20, 2022);

- lepel.by (Novosti Lep­elia news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Jan­u­ary 25, 2022);

- naviny97.by (Naviny 97 news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Feb­ru­ary 18, 2022);

- honest-people.by (the web­site of the Hon­est Peo­ple pub­lic ini­tia­tive des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2022);

- bornews.by (Borisov-Info news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on July 18, 2022);

- zasvojgorod.by (Vek­tor Nashego Goro­da news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Sep­tem­ber 5, 2022);

- babruisk.by (Bobruiskiy Kuri­er news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2022);

- carkva-gazeta.by (carkva.by news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Decem­ber 14, 2022);

- bk-brest.by (the web­site of the Brest­skiy Kuri­er pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on July 7, 2023);

- zbsunion.by (the web­site of the Belaru­sian Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on August 4, 2023);

- inform-progulka.by (the web­site of the Inform-Progul­ka region­al pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Octo­ber 20, 2023);

- ganc-chas.by (the web­site of the Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas region­al pub­li­ca­tion des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Novem­ber 2, 2022);

- pyx.by (the web­site of the For Free­dom Move­ment des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Decem­ber 7, 2023);

- 1pinsk.by (Per­shy Pin­s­ki news out­let des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­uct on Decem­ber 21, 2023).