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  • Aliaksei Batsiukou, vlogger and journalist from Mahiliou, reportedly detained

    According to his friends, he never returned from the interrogation at the KGB office that took place after the search of his house on December 5. His location is currently unknown.

    On Decem­ber 5 and 6, jour­nal­ists and activists sus­pect­ed of hav­ing links with the region­al media resources Mahiliou.Media and 6TV Belarus were searched and inter­ro­gat­ed. On 29 Novem­ber, the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee declared these media out­lets as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”. The Inte­ri­or Min­istry of Belarus post­ed a noti­fi­ca­tion about this sta­tus on Decem­ber 4.

    Last Fri­day, the state TV chan­nel Belarus 4 Mahil­iou aired a show “Face Down”, fea­tur­ing the for­mer direc­tor of the Mahil­iou His­to­ry Muse­um and vlog­ger Ali­ak­sei Bat­siuk­ou bru­tal­ly detained dur­ing a raid.

    Accord­ing to the show, Ali­ak­sei Bat­siuk­ou edit­ed a media resource rec­og­nized by the KGB as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion.” He was also involved in dis­trib­ut­ing funds intend­ed for jour­nal­ists’ salaries.

    Dzmit­ry Salau­jou, an activist referred to as Bat­siuk­ou’s accom­plice in the movie, believes that Ali­ak­sei has been detained in a crim­i­nal case. His where­abouts have been unknown for almost two weeks.

    In late July and ear­ly August, Ali­ak­sei Bat­siuk­ou was detained in an admin­is­tra­tive case for 11 days. He was found guilty of dis­trib­ut­ing “extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­ucts”.

    Ali­ak­sei Bat­siuk­ou was fined in 2020 for par­tic­i­pat­ing in unau­tho­rized pub­lic gath­er­ings. As a con­se­quence, his labor con­tract was not renewed in Jan­u­ary 2021, and he was forced to leave his posi­tion as direc­tor of the Mahil­iou His­to­ry Muse­um.

    After leav­ing the muse­um, Bat­siuk­ou cre­at­ed his own YouTube chan­nel, where he dis­cussed the his­to­ry of Mahil­iou.

    Read more:

    Human rights activists say journalist Henadz Mazheika has been released

    Solidarity Marathon for Imprisoned Belarusian Journalists held in Canada

    Aksana Kolb resigns from her position as Novy Chas editor-in-chief

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