Hrodna.life editor released before trial

“I am in a fight­ing mood, despite the fact that the police have already tak­en away my shoelaces. But at a cer­tain point, plans appar­ent­ly changed and I was released,” Alyak­sei Shota told Bel­sat.

A new admin­is­tra­tive case was brought against Shota for the “dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist mate­ri­als.” He faces a fine of up to 500 basic units.

“I explain such super atten­tion to Hrodna.life by the fact that we con­tin­ue to work despite the attacks and huge fines. We have the recog­ni­tion of read­ers, adver­tis­ers, as well as the rel­e­vant author­i­ties who put pres­sure on us. And who else of the media can put pres­sure on Hrod­na to demon­strate they are need­ed,” he says.

On 30 May Hrodna.life edi­tor-in-chief Alyak­sei Shota was detained in Hrod­na. He was detained in front of his fam­i­ly in front of the house where he lived. Unknown peo­ple in a white bus approached him and told him to fol­low them with­out expla­na­tions.

For some time the edi­tor-in-chief was kept in Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Police Depart­ment of Hrod­na. A bus was parked under the journalist’s house.

On 19 March Alyak­sei Shota was fined 425 basic units for “dis­tri­b­u­tion of extrem­ist infor­ma­tion.”

The rea­son for the hear­ing was three mate­ri­als on the web­site. One of them, for exam­ple, said that Stsya­pan Putsila’s Telegram chan­nel was rec­og­nized as extrem­ist in nature in Belarus. This was con­sid­ered the dis­sem­i­na­tion of extrem­ist infor­ma­tion.