Orsha.eu website recognized as extremist formation

There is no infor­ma­tion about it in the «list of extrem­ist for­ma­tions» on the offi­cial web­site of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs (as of 16:30 on August 29, 2024). How­ev­er, the Telegram chan­nel t.me/guBAZA claims that «by the deci­sion of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs the activ­i­ty of a group of cit­i­zens unit­ed under the name ‘Orsha_eu’ on all Inter­net plat­forms on the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus was rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and banned».

The date of the deci­sion is not men­tioned. How­ev­er, the rea­sons for such a deci­sion are explained – “for orga­niz­ing activ­i­ties to pre­pare attacks on the sov­er­eign­ty and pub­lic secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus, dis­cred­it­ing and insult­ing offi­cials”.

The cre­ator and edi­tor of the por­tal Orsha_eu Ihar Kazmer­chak has been liv­ing abroad for sev­er­al years. He was forced to leave Belarus under threat of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion: sev­er­al crim­i­nal cas­es were brought against him, includ­ing for insult­ing Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka, and his apart­ment in Orša was con­fis­cat­ed.

In his home coun­try, how­ev­er, his jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties con­tin­ue to wor­ry both law enforce­ment offi­cials and his col­leagues in the state media. In July this year, the infor­ma­tion that Ihar Kazmer­chak was on the want­ed list and that he received «thou­sands of euros from his Pol­ish mas­ters» appeared on the pages of the Orša news­pa­per in social net­works.

Accord­ing to the jour­nal­ist, such atten­tion to him is caused by the fact that the Orša por­tal does not stop its work even for a day and pub­lish­es truth­ful infor­ma­tion about life in the region. On June 20, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion added the web­site and social net­works of Orsha.eu to the list of «extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­ucts». The deci­sion was made by the Court of Orša Dis­trict and Orša City on June 18.