Сriminal case opened against Dev.by director

The charges are unknown as of pub­li­ca­tion. The pro-gov­ern­ment chan­nels accuse Andras of “incit­ing a coup d’etat” and shar­ing posts from NEXTA Telegram chan­nel.

The direc­tor of Dev By Media Vital Andras and his wife Ale­na Andras were detained on June 23. Lat­er, a “repen­tant” video of Vital appeared in the social media con­nect­ed to the law enforce­ment agen­cies. In this video, the man claims that in August 2020 he took part in protests, fol­lowed Telegram chan­nels rec­og­nized as “extrem­ist,” and was reg­is­tered in the “Vic­to­ry” plan ini­ti­at­ed by the Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion in exile.

Accord­ing to human rights defend­ers, the most mas­sive repres­sions in the mod­ern his­to­ry of Belarus have been tak­ing place since the sum­mer of 2020. Dur­ing this time, inves­tiga­tive agen­cies across the coun­try have opened more than 5,000 protest-relat­ed crim­i­nal cas­es. As of 26 June 2022, human rights activists have rec­og­nized 1,214 peo­ple as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Thou­sands of pro­test­ers across the coun­try have been the vic­tims of tar­get­ed tor­ture, and some 41,000 peo­ple have been detained. Var­i­ous esti­mates show that 4 to 20 peo­ple have died due to the state ter­ror pol­i­cy. Until now, no one has been pros­e­cut­ed for tor­ture or the killing of dis­senters.