Nasha Niva

No.

Date

Form of repres­sion

Descrip­tion

29 August 2020

Web­site block­ing

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus deter­mined to block Nasha Niva web­site pur­suant to the Law on Mass Media.

8 July 2021

Search in the edi­to­r­i­al office Crim­i­nal case

The Nasha Niva edi­to­r­i­al and account­ing offices, as well as homes of news­pa­per jour­nal­ists and exec­u­tives, were searched.

Inves­tiga­tive pro­ceed­ings were ini­ti­at­ed against four peo­ple: edi­tor-in-chief Yahor Martsi­novich, head of adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing Andrei Skurko, edi­tor of Nasha His­to­ria, Dudu and Ast­siarozh­na: Dzetsi! pub­li­ca­tions Andrei Dynko, as well as chief accoun­tant Vol­ha Rakovich.

All of them are sus­pects under part 1 of Arti­cle 342 (orga­ni­za­tion or prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order or par­tic­i­pa­tion in such actions) and Arti­cle 293 of the Crim­i­nal Code (mass riots). Ten days lat­er they were not charged, but instead rede­tained for anoth­er three days under part 2 of Arti­cle 216 of the Crim­i­nal Code (caus­ing injury not qual­i­fy­ing for theft, com­mit­ted by a group of per­sons in col­lu­sion, or major injury).

On 16 July 2021, Vol­ha Rakovich was released; on 21 July, Andrei Dynko was released with an under­tak­ing to appear.

On 28 July 2021, Yahor Martsi­novich and Andrei Skurko were charged under Part 2 of Arti­cle 216 of the Crim­i­nal Code (”caus­ing injury not qual­i­fy­ing for theft, com­mit­ted by a group of per­sons”).

On 15 March 2022, Yahor Martsi­novich and Andrei Skurko were sen­tenced to 2.5 years of impris­on­ment by the Zavad­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Min­sk.

8 July 2021

Web­site block­ing

Based on a notice from the Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office of Belarus, “con­cern­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of infor­ma­tion that is pro­hib­it­ed for dis­tri­b­u­tion,” the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion deter­mined to restrict access to the nn.by web­site.

23 Novem­ber 2021

Declar­ing con­tent extrem­ist

The Tsen­tral­ny Dis­trict Court of Min­sk rec­og­nized Nasha Niva con­tent, social media, and mes­sen­ger ser­vices as extrem­ist.

Now read­ers may be held admin­is­tra­tive­ly liable under Part 2 Arti­cle 19.11 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Offences Code (a fine of $100–300) for dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion link­ing to Nasha Niva resources.

14 Jan­u­ary 2022

Recog­ni­tion as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion

The KGB rul­ing of 14.01.2022 “On recog­ni­tion of a group of cit­i­zens as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and pro­hi­bi­tion of its activ­i­ty” deter­mined that “a group of cit­i­zens unit­ed under Sorodichi pri­vate com­pa­ny (Nasha Niva pub­lish­er) car­ries out extrem­ist activ­i­ty through Nasha Niva news­pa­per.»

Sorodichi pri­vate com­pa­ny (Nasha Niva) was includ­ed in the Reg­is­ter of Orga­ni­za­tions, For­ma­tions, and Indi­vid­ual Entre­pre­neurs Involved in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ty under No. 31.

Estab­lish­ment or par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion is a crim­i­nal offense pun­ish­able by impris­on­ment from 2 to 10 years (Arti­cle 361¹ of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus).