Siarhei Chabotska, editor of Hrodna’s s13.ru, designated as political prisoner

The Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty made a cor­re­spond­ing state­ment on Decem­ber 28. Siarhei Chabot­s­ka, the own­er and edi­tor of the Hrod­na-based s13.ru media web­site, has been detained for more than two months. 

Siarhei Chabot­s­ka. Pho­to: Face­book

Human rights activists say that the Belaru­sian Inte­ri­or Min­istry and the KGB arbi­trar­i­ly label groups of cit­i­zens as extrem­ists just because they crit­i­cize the author­i­ties and call for changes in the state. The media are also seen as extrem­ist groups.

«This in turn paves the way for the arbi­trary pros­e­cu­tion and impris­on­ment of their mem­bers and respon­dents as a dis­pro­por­tion­ate mea­sure restrict­ing the right to asso­ci­a­tion and free­dom of expres­sion,» the experts write.

The own­er of the Hrod­na news por­tal s13.ru, Siarhei Chabot­s­ka, was detained by law enforce­ment offi­cials on Octo­ber 23. On the same day, the site and affil­i­at­ed social media stopped updat­ing. 

On Octo­ber 25, the Hrod­na Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court sen­tenced him to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for «dis­tri­b­u­tion, pro­duc­tion, stor­age, trans­porta­tion of infor­ma­tion prod­ucts con­tain­ing calls to ‘extrem­ist activ­i­ty’ or pro­pa­gan­da for such activ­i­ty.» The court cit­ed images in the archived arti­cles of the site as the rea­son for the pros­e­cu­tion, not­ing that these images showed the logo of anoth­er media out­let rec­og­nized by the author­i­ties as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion.»

It was sub­se­quent­ly revealed that on that very day, the Hrod­na Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Court ruled to clas­si­fy the web­site and its asso­ci­at­ed Telegram chan­nel as «extrem­ist infor­ma­tion prod­ucts.» These mate­ri­als were includ­ed in the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als. Three days lat­er, on Octo­ber 28, the court expand­ed its deci­sion by adding the pages on social media and the logos of s13.ru to the list of extrem­ist mate­ri­als.

On Novem­ber 6, Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was sen­tenced to a sec­ond admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion. Hrod­na Lenin­s­ki Dis­trict Judge Natal­lia Hor­bach sen­tenced him to anoth­er 15 days for «vio­lat­ing the estab­lished order of hold­ing a meet­ing, ral­ly, street pro­ces­sion, demon­stra­tion, pick­et or oth­er mass event.”

On Novem­ber 22, the edi­tor of s13.ru was sen­tenced to 15 days’ admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion by the same court for the third time in a row. He was again accused of dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als». 

The term of this deten­tion expired on Decem­ber 7, but Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was not released. Noth­ing is known about the new admin­is­tra­tive court. This may indi­cate that Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was detained in a crim­i­nal case. 

On Decem­ber 9, the web­site s13.ru was includ­ed in the List of Orga­ni­za­tions, For­ma­tions, Indi­vid­ual Entre­pre­neurs Involved in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ties. Accord­ing to law enforce­ment, Siarhei Chabot­s­ka and Raman Alesh­ka were part of a group of cit­i­zens involved in «extrem­ist activ­i­ties.» 

Accord­ing to the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed on the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or’s web­site, the KGB declared the por­tal s13.ru an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» on Novem­ber 5, and the deci­sion of the law enforce­ment bod­ies took effect on that date. Con­cur­rent­ly, Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was serv­ing his final admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion. 

The Hrod­na por­tal s13.ru had been in exis­tence for 19 years, hav­ing debuted in 2005 as a blog before evolv­ing into a news aggre­ga­tor. While the site fea­tured lim­it­ed orig­i­nal con­tent, it con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the most pop­u­lar resources in the city.