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Belarus bans Polish Radio website as ‘extremist’

08.08.2022 06:30
Belarusian authorities have banned public broadcaster Polish Radio’s polskieradio.pl website for being “extremist,” as the Lukashenko regime continues to crack down on free media, executives have said.
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Minsk made the decision in late July, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

Andrzej Rybałt, who heads Polish Radio’s External Service, also known as Radio Poland, described the move as “another episode in Alexander Lukashenko regime’s clampdown on free media.”  

“The Lukashenko regime will do everything it can to make sure that the section of the Belarusian society that wants to know what the world looks like, is cut off from free media access,” Rybałt said.

He added: “The Lukashenko regime is completely subordinated to the security services of the Russian Federation and Lukashenko himself is totally dependent on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s policy.”

“And so the Polish Radio website conflicts with Minsk’s information strategy,” Rybałt also said.

Polish Radio content 'dangerous for Lukashenko regime’ 

He told the IAR news agency that "the polskieradio.pl content addressed to Belarusians was dangerous for the Lukashenko regime."

“The content was about the free world’s struggle against the Russkiy Mir ideology,” Rybałt said. “The Lukashenko regime is anxious to prevent Belarusian society from receiving any information about world events that can influence how the Belarusian people perceive Minsk’s current policy.”

Rybałt noted that the polskieradio.pl website also reported on the Belarusian opposition’s struggle against the Lukashenko regime, "on Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and on how Belarusian partisans were sabotaging Putin’s forces stationed in Belarus."   

The audio and written content provided by Polish Radio’s Belarusian section is still available in Belarus through VPN and on the airwaves, the IAR news agency reported. 

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP