Media IQ and Obychnoe Utro media projects declared extremist formations

On June 25, the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus’ web­site includ­ed the Media IQ project (along with affil­i­at­ed social media pages and mes­sen­gers) and the Oby­ch­noe Utro ini­tia­tive on its list of “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”.

Pho­to: Jan van der Wolf / pexels.com

As stat­ed on the agency’s web­site, the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee of the Repub­lic of Belarus adopt­ed two deci­sions on June 18, 2024. The first deci­sion rec­og­nized a group of cit­i­zens as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, and the sec­ond banned its activ­i­ties. Both deci­sions took effect on the same day.

The fol­low­ing cit­i­zens have been iden­ti­fied as mem­bers of a group who car­ried out “extrem­ist activ­i­ties” as part of Media IQ: Nadzeya Belakhvost­sik, Ali­ak­sei Khu­danau, Daria Hlukha­va, Pavel Byk­ous­ki, Ale­na Verashchahi­na, Anton Sai­fu­layeu, Pali­na Pitke­vich, Ala Sharko, and Vik­tar Mal­isheus­ki.

The fol­low­ing list of Inter­net resources relat­ed to the project is includ­ed in the KGB deci­sion:

• Web­site mediaiq.info,
• Face­book account (facebook.com/mediaIQBelarus),
• Insta­gram page (instagram.com/mediaiq_official),
• Tik­Tok account (tiktok.com@mediaiq_belarus),
• Link­tree page (linktr.ee/mediaiq_official),
• YouTube chan­nel (youtube.com/@mediaiqbelarus),
• Telegram chan­nel (t.me/mediaiqBelarus),
• Telegram bot (t.me/@MediaIQBelarus_bot).

On June 14, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion includ­ed these resources in the repub­li­can list of extrem­ist mate­ri­als. The Face­book account was includ­ed in the list twice. Some Inter­net resources men­tioned by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion and the KGB no longer exist.

The KGB has indi­cat­ed that Kanstantsin Mis­una and Liud­mi­la Labun­skaya are asso­ci­at­ed with the “extrem­ist activ­i­ties” of the Oby­ch­noe Utro ini­tia­tive.

The pages men­tioned in the State Secu­ri­ty Committee’s deci­sion are:

• Tik­Tok (tiktok.com@usual_morning),
• Insta­gram (instagram.com/usual_morning),
• Telegram (t.me/usual_morning),
• YouTube chan­nel (youtube.com/@utro).

In May of this year, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion also includ­ed these online resources in its list of extrem­ist mate­ri­als.

Under the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion of Belarus, indi­vid­u­als who are rec­og­nized as par­tic­i­pants in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion may be held crim­i­nal­ly liable under the arti­cles “Cre­ation of or Par­tic­i­pa­tion in an Extrem­ist For­ma­tion” (Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code) or “Pro­mot­ing Extrem­ist Activ­i­ties” (Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code). The penal­ties for these offens­es may include up to 10 years of impris­on­ment.