Affiliated media: European Radio for Belarus, News Website

Incident date: July 9, 2024

Attack type:

• request to remove or block the article and/or refutation

Who attacked: Unknown sources

Source: Belorussian Association of Journalist

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

Unknown individuals are trying to remove the sensational Euroradio article 'There's not enough sex: Belorussian women reports that UN liason officer molested her', which features accusations of harassment against Sanaka Samarasinha the ex-chief of the organization in Belarus. Samarasinha's 'supporters' are using an unusual method; they create copies of the article in English translation, and then make copyright complaints against Euroradio. The first few copies appeared on Tumblr, a blogging site which allows editing of the publication date, allowing the activists to give the appearance that it was in fact their version of the article that appeared first. Then, the so-called authors of the article sent copyright complaints to Euroradio's hosting company, as well as the service which provides their DDOS-attack protection.