Blogger Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk accused of promoting extremist activities, blackmail, and defamation
Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk, a former journalist and blogger, was detained in July 2023. The press service of the Interior Ministry of Belarus has recently disclosed the charges against him.
Currently, the 52-year-old journalist is detained in Baranavichy pre-trial detention center and will soon face trial, according to BAJ.
According to a post on the official Telegram channel of the Interior Ministry of Belarus, Ihnatsiuk promoted the activities of an extremist Telegram channel whose administrators are abroad. The ministry also accuses him of systematically discrediting state bodies and attempting to get a job at extremist internet media outlets.
Additionally, the accused allegedly made videos containing damaging information about local businessmen and extorted money from them, threatening to publish these facts on the internet. Three residents of the Stolin district were affected by the blogger’s activities.
Ihnatsiuk was arrested on 18 July 2023. A month later, the Belarusian human rights community recognized him as a political prisoner.
Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk published the independent regional newspaper Vecherniy Stolin and served as its editor-in-chief in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In 2003, the newspaper was suspended for three months by order of the then-Minister of Information, Mikhail Padhainy, due to alleged violations of the Law on Press and Other Mass Media.
In October 2003, Vecherniy Stolin resumed publication. However, in December of the same year, the editor, Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk, was found guilty of insulting Uladzimir Pashkevich, the former chairman of the Stolin District Executive Committee. As a result, Ihnatsiuk was fined $230 under Article 369 of the Criminal Code.
In February 2004, Ihnatsiuk received a warning and another order to suspend the publication for three months by mail for alleged violations of the mass media law.
The editorial office was criticized for having advertising materials that exceeded 30% of the issue volume, despite not being registered as a specialized mass media for advertising messages and materials.
The newspaper faced a second lawsuit due to changes in the publication’s theme and language without notifying the registration authority in writing. The warning stated that the newspaper had shifted its focus from business and leisure topics to mass politics and had switched from using both Russian and Belarusian languages to only using Russian.
As a result, the newspaper Vecherniy Stolin was never published again. Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk created the website Pro Stolin and worked as a freelance journalist. He also engaged in blogging, making videos that he posted on the website, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
On February 13th of this year, the Leninski District Court of Brest deemed the website stolin.bu and the personal Vkontakte page of the site’s editor, Aliaksandr Ihnatsiuk, as ‘extremist’. Three days later, on February 16th, the same court reaffirmed the Stolin website’s ‘extremist’ status.