Special proceedings initiated against blogger Anton Matolka under 13 criminal articles

In Belarus, blog­ger Anton Matol­ka was charged under 13 arti­cles of the Crim­i­nal Code. The cre­ator of Belarus­ki Hajun, a media project ded­i­cat­ed to cov­er­ing the move­ment of Russ­ian troops and mil­i­tary equip­ment in Belarus, and a for­mer blog­ger-urban­ist is accused of attempt­ing to seize pow­er, extrem­ism, and high trea­son.

Anton Matol­ka. Pho­to: Dzmit­ry Brushko / TUT.BY

The case is con­duct­ed by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee with­in the so-called spe­cial pro­ced­ings, i.e. in the absence of the accused. Fear­ing polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed per­se­cu­tion, Matol­ka left the coun­try in 2020.

Accord­ing to the Telegram chan­nel «Spe­cial Pro­ceed­ings. Offi­cial», Anton Matol­ka is charged with the fol­low­ing offens­es:

• Arti­cle 357, Part 1 – Con­spir­a­cy or any oth­er act com­mit­ted to seize or retain the pow­er of the State by uncon­sti­tu­tion­al means;
• Arti­cle 293, Part 1 – Orga­niz­ing mass riots;
• Arti­cle 342, Part 1 – Orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing, or par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order;
• Arti­cle 130, Part 3 – Incit­ing racial, reli­gious or social hatred;
• Arti­cle 361, Part 3 – Encour­ag­ing restric­tive mea­sures (sanc­tions) and oth­er mea­sures to harm the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus;
• Arti­cle 366, part 2 – Using vio­lence against or threat­en­ing an offi­cial per­form­ing a pub­lic duty (against the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus);
• Arti­cle 367, Part 2 – Libel­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus;
• Arti­cle 368, Parts 1 and 2 – Insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus;
• Arti­cle 369–1 – Dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus;
• Arti­cle 361–1, Parts 1 and 2 – Estab­lish­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion;
• Arti­cle 361–2, Part 2 – Financ­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties;
• Arti­cle 361–2 (as amend­ed by the Law of the Repub­lic of Belarus of 20.04.2016 No. 358‑Z) – Pro­vid­ing mon­ey in any way to know­ing­ly sup­port extrem­ist for­ma­tion activ­i­ties);
• Arti­cle 361–4, Part 2 – Pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties;
• Arti­cle 356, Part 1 – High trea­son.

At least two of the arti­cles involved car­ry penal­ties of up to 15 years impris­on­ment.

Anton Matol­ka was sum­moned to the Hrod­na Region Depart­ment of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Repub­lic of Belarus for the pre­sen­ta­tion of the case.

In March 2021, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee report­ed that the blog­ger had been placed on an inter­state list of per­sons want­ed by police. Matol­ka respond­ed by say­ing that he was «ready to stand tri­al for all he’s done. In the New Belarus.»

In April 2021, the KGB of Belarus includ­ed Anton Matol­ka in the list of per­sons «involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties».

On March 16, 2022, the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or of Belarus includ­ed «a group of cit­i­zens unit­ed around the Telegram chan­nel Belarus­ki Hajun and the asso­ci­at­ed Telegram group in the list of extrem­ist for­ma­tions». The next day, on March 17, 2022, «a group of cit­i­zens unit­ed by the Telegram chan­nel MotolkoPo­mo­gi» was added to the list of extrem­ist for­ma­tions.

In 2016, Anton Matol­ka received an award in the «Media/Journalist of the Year» cat­e­go­ry at the Cham­pi­ons of Civ­il Soci­ety com­pe­ti­tion held by the Assem­bly of Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Orga­ni­za­tions for his time­ly cov­er­age of the non-gov­ern­men­tal sec­tor activ­i­ties.