Mass arrests take place in Baranavichy targetting Intex-Press staff

In ear­ly Decem­ber, the Brest branch of Vias­na report­ed that numer­ous employ­ees and jour­nal­ists of the recent­ly defunct pri­vate news­pa­per Intex-Press were appre­hend­ed in Baranavichy.

It has been con­firmed that sev­en indi­vid­u­als have been detained on sus­pi­cion of pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties.

Fol­low­ing the 2020 elec­tions, the edi­to­r­i­al staff of Intex-Press was sub­ject­ed to cen­sor­ship, search­es, fines, and the seizure of equip­ment.

For exam­ple, on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2023, law enforce­ment offi­cials arrived at the Intex-Press pub­lish­ing house with a search war­rant to con­duct an inspec­tion of the premis­es.

Dur­ing the inspec­tion, a num­ber of items were seized, includ­ing sys­tem units, a cam­era, lap­tops (includ­ing those belong­ing to Intex-Press employ­ees), and com­put­er equip­ment from the account­ing and adver­tis­ing depart­ments.

On the fol­low­ing day, an Intex-Press cor­re­spon­dent was tak­en into deten­tion. She had been pre­vi­ous­ly sum­moned to the police for ques­tion­ing.

Fur­ther­more, on May 4, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties restrict­ed access to the pop­u­lar online pub­li­ca­tion in Baranavichy. This deci­sion was war­rant­ed by Vik­tar Kli­mau, the Brest Region Pros­e­cu­tor, who cit­ed numer­ous vio­la­tions of the Mass Media Act by this media out­let.

As stat­ed by the press ser­vice of the Brest Region Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office at the time, the por­tal in ques­tion pub­lished infor­ma­tion that neg­a­tive­ly char­ac­ter­ized the socio-polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try after the elec­tion cam­paign and dis­cred­it­ed the activ­i­ties of state and law enforce­ment bod­ies on numer­ous occa­sions.