Affiliated media: Virtual Brest, News website

Incident date: June 16, 2021

Attack type:

• Prosecution for extremism, links with terrorists, inciting hatred, high treason, calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order, rehabilitation of Nazism (2)

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location:

Additional information:

The Moskovsky District Court of Brest, having considered the application of the regional branch of the State Department for Combating Organised Crime, declared the publication on the website Virtual Brest an extremist material. The reason was a photo of a public activist in an embroidered shirt with national ornament. In the pattern of ornamentation on the shirt, the security officers saw a Nazi swastika. The representative of the website Yulia Kukharchik did not agree with the stated requirements. «The given symbol is an artefact of pre-Christian culture. It emerged long before the XX century», — Kukharchik stated in court. As arguments, there were also examples where this symbol is found: on the Kirov rushniki, which are kept in the National Art Museum of Belarus, in the Mogilev Museum of Local Lore, on the covers of books, and on the website of schools in the example of ornaments. As a result, the court sided with the police.