Editor of S13 news portal sentenced to 3.5 years for “extremism” and “defamation” of Lukashenka

The Hrod­na Region­al Court has sen­tenced Siarhei Chabot­s­ka, edi­tor of the local news por­tal s13.ru, to three years and six months in prison, along with a large fine.

Siarhei Chabot­s­ka. Pho­to: Face­book

On Octo­ber 31, Judge Yury Kaza­ke­vich found Chabot­s­ka guilty of estab­lish­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and defama­tion of the Pres­i­dent of Belarus.

In addi­tion to the prison term, the court ordered Chabot­s­ka to pay a fine of $14,230.

Chabot­s­ka plead­ed not guilty.

The ver­dict was first report­ed by the state-run broad­cast­er Hrod­na TV and Radio Com­pa­ny.

Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was detained on Octo­ber 23, 2024, after which the s13.ru web­site and its social media pages stopped updat­ing. Two days lat­er, the Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Hrod­na ruled that the site’s con­tent and its affil­i­at­ed Telegram chan­nel con­sti­tut­ed “extrem­ist infor­ma­tion.” With­in days, the court also des­ig­nat­ed s13.ru’s social media pages and logos as extrem­ist mate­ri­als, adding them to the offi­cial Nation­al List of Extrem­ist Con­tent and Pub­li­ca­tions.

Imme­di­ate­ly after his arrest, Chabot­s­ka received 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for “dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist con­tent.”

With­out releas­ing him, author­i­ties extend­ed his deten­tion twice more — first for alleged­ly vio­lat­ing reg­u­la­tions on pub­lic gath­er­ings, and again for anoth­er count of dis­trib­ut­ing extrem­ist con­tent.

After serv­ing these con­sec­u­tive admin­is­tra­tive sen­tences, Chabot­s­ka remained in cus­tody as inves­ti­ga­tors opened a crim­i­nal case against him.

Sub­se­quent devel­op­ments revealed that the charges relat­ed to alleged “extrem­ist activ­i­ties.” On Decem­ber 9, 2024, s13.ru was added to the List of Orga­ni­za­tions, Groups, and Entre­pre­neurs Involved in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ty. Accord­ing to law enforce­ment, Chabot­s­ka and anoth­er indi­vid­ual, Raman Alesh­ka, were iden­ti­fied as the group’s mem­bers.

Infor­ma­tion pub­lished by the Inte­ri­or Min­istry showed that the KGB had already declared s13.ru an extrem­ist for­ma­tion on Novem­ber 5, 2024.

On Decem­ber 28, 2024, Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nized Siarhei Chabot­s­ka as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

While he remained in deten­tion, author­i­ties con­tin­ued tar­get­ing his media project. On March 14, 2025, the Lienin­s­ki Dis­trict Court declared s13.ru’s Tik­Tok account and YouTube chan­nels “extrem­ist con­tent.”

The Hrod­na-based news por­tal s13.ru oper­at­ed for 19 years. It was found­ed in 2005, ini­tial­ly as a blog, lat­er evolv­ing into a local news aggre­ga­tor. Although the site pro­duced lim­it­ed orig­i­nal con­tent, it remained one of the city’s most pop­u­lar online media out­lets for many years.