Malanka Media head’s case submitted to court

They alleged­ly con­spired to dis­rupt the nation­al ref­er­en­dum in Jan­u­ary-Feb­ru­ary 2022, using threats and oth­er ille­gal meth­ods. Zhy­vahlod, Liber, Maryn­ich, and Dabravol­s­ki were among those involved in the plan that includ­ed send­ing let­ters to the res­i­dences and work­places of elec­tion com­mis­sion mem­bers.

Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, the let­ters “con­tained threats aimed at intim­i­dat­ing, cre­at­ing doubts as to the legal­i­ty of their actions, and instill­ing feel­ings of guilt for their work as com­mis­sion mem­bers. The let­ters also sug­gest­ed that the cur­rent gov­ern­ment is unable to ensure their safe­ty. They demand­ed to pro­vide the extrem­ist group ‘Hon­est Peo­ple’ with infor­ma­tion and made unground­ed claims about the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of the ref­er­en­dum turnout and vot­ing results.

Under­stand­ing their insol­ven­cy, lack of sup­port and author­i­ty in Belaru­sian soci­ety, the defen­dants sent let­ters on behalf of var­i­ous state bod­ies, offi­cials, and oth­er indi­vid­u­als who were not involved in the ille­gal activ­i­ties.”

The indict­ment states that the mem­bers of the com­mis­sions received at least 11,000 let­ters.

In Decem­ber 2023, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee ini­ti­at­ed ‘spe­cial pro­ceed­ings’ against Maryn­ich, Zhy­vahlod, Dabravol­s­ki, and Liber. They will be tried in absen­tia.

Pavel Maryn­ich, the son of the per­se­cut­ed for­mer states­man Mikhail Maryn­ich and the head of Malan­ka Media, left Belarus after the 2010 elec­tion protest. Malan­ka Media, was estab­lished in 2020. Pavel Maryn­ich stat­ed in an inter­view with Nasha Niva that their project start­ed as Zubr.in, a plat­form for elec­tion obser­va­tion that pub­lished open data. Maryn­ich believes that their most sig­nif­i­cant recent accom­plish­ment is the fact that Lukashen­ka is no longer rec­og­nized as the pres­i­dent world­wide. He is a dic­ta­tor who holds pow­er in the coun­try.

On Feb­ru­ary 15, 2023, the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs rec­og­nized Malan­ka Media as an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion.’ Accord­ing to pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nels, this deci­sion was made due to pub­lic calls for sanc­tions and the attacks on the sov­er­eign­ty and pub­lic secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

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