Aliaksei Shota

Affiliated media: Hrodna.life, Editor-in-chief

Incident date: March 19, 2021

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Hrodna

Additional information:

The editor-in-chief of Hrodna.life Aliaksei Shota was fined twice for distribution of information products included in the national list of extremist materials (Part 2 of Article 17.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences): 400 basic amounts (BYN 11,600) as a representative of a legal entity and 25 basic amounts (BYN 725) as an individual. The court ruled to confiscate the laptop seized from the journalist. Judge Natalia Kozel read out two reports on administrative offence. According to them, Aliaksei (as an individual and a legal entity) posted three materials in April and June 2020, which contained links or the logo of the Telegram channel, recognised as extremist. Aliaksei Shota plead not guilty. He specified in his testimony that when the materials were published, the Telegram channel was not recognised as extremist. After the Telegram channel was recognised as extremist, all references to the website that could be found were removed.