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  • Malanka Media head’s case submitted to court

    The Prosecutor General’s Office has sent the criminal case of Pavel Marynich, the head of Malanka Media, for trial. Pavel Liber, the creator of the digital platform ‘New Belarus,’ politician Aliaksandr Dabravolski, and Alena Zhyvahlod, the head of the initiative ‘Honest People,’ are also being investigated as part of this case.

    The defendants are accused of obstructing the work of the Central Election Commission and the Referendum Commission.

    They alleged­ly con­spired to dis­rupt the nation­al ref­er­en­dum in Jan­u­ary-Feb­ru­ary 2022, using threats and oth­er ille­gal meth­ods. Zhy­vahlod, Liber, Maryn­ich, and Dabravol­s­ki were among those involved in the plan that includ­ed send­ing let­ters to the res­i­dences and work­places of elec­tion com­mis­sion mem­bers.

    Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, the let­ters “con­tained threats aimed at intim­i­dat­ing, cre­at­ing doubts as to the legal­i­ty of their actions, and instill­ing feel­ings of guilt for their work as com­mis­sion mem­bers. The let­ters also sug­gest­ed that the cur­rent gov­ern­ment is unable to ensure their safe­ty. They demand­ed to pro­vide the extrem­ist group ‘Hon­est Peo­ple’ with infor­ma­tion and made unground­ed claims about the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of the ref­er­en­dum turnout and vot­ing results.

    Under­stand­ing their insol­ven­cy, lack of sup­port and author­i­ty in Belaru­sian soci­ety, the defen­dants sent let­ters on behalf of var­i­ous state bod­ies, offi­cials, and oth­er indi­vid­u­als who were not involved in the ille­gal activ­i­ties.”

    The indict­ment states that the mem­bers of the com­mis­sions received at least 11,000 let­ters.

    In Decem­ber 2023, the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee ini­ti­at­ed ‘spe­cial pro­ceed­ings’ against Maryn­ich, Zhy­vahlod, Dabravol­s­ki, and Liber. They will be tried in absen­tia.

    Pavel Maryn­ich, the son of the per­se­cut­ed for­mer states­man Mikhail Maryn­ich and the head of Malan­ka Media, left Belarus after the 2010 elec­tion protest. Malan­ka Media, was estab­lished in 2020. Pavel Maryn­ich stat­ed in an inter­view with Nasha Niva that their project start­ed as Zubr.in, a plat­form for elec­tion obser­va­tion that pub­lished open data. Maryn­ich believes that their most sig­nif­i­cant recent accom­plish­ment is the fact that Lukashen­ka is no longer rec­og­nized as the pres­i­dent world­wide. He is a dic­ta­tor who holds pow­er in the coun­try.

    On Feb­ru­ary 15, 2023, the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs rec­og­nized Malan­ka Media as an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion.’ Accord­ing to pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nels, this deci­sion was made due to pub­lic calls for sanc­tions and the attacks on the sov­er­eign­ty and pub­lic secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

    Read more:

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    Fact-checking Rimas Bružas’ column on LRT: 2% real vs 50% claimed

    E‑NEWSLETTER: MASS MEDIA IN BELARUS IN 2023

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