At the end of October, 625 people at a time were recognised by the Belarusian authorities as extremists, which is a record. All in all, there are about 1,500 people on the list, and all are listed for the year 2022.
Who are these people? Most are convicted and imprisoned on political grounds, and some have served time or fled abroad. Some are added in married couples, and one person has even been counted twice.
In addition to the list of extremist individuals, there are lists of extremist materials and extremist organisations (you can download them from the Ministry of Internal Affairs website, but only from the territory of Belarus, with Belarusian IP). There is also a list of terrorists and terrorist organisations. You can also get there for political activity.
Having carefully read all these documents, the Belarusians can find their media persons, acquaintances or even relatives. For example, among the extremists are philosopher Vladimir Matskevich from the Center of European Transformation and one of the most famous editors of the Russian-language Wikipedia Mark Bernstein from Belarus.
The team of former presidential candidate Valery Tsepkalo is recognised as an extremist organisation. Extremist materials include almost all independent media and the social networking sites of Oleksiy Arestovych, Ukraine's current presidential adviser. The list of terrorists and terrorist organisations includes Svetlana Tikhanovska and some people from her team.
„The feeling is contradictory – but I think I'm going to like it.“
People are reacting in different ways to reports that they are on the extremist list. Some say they are no longer surprised by anything and that it couldn't get any worse anyway. However, the very fact amuses others. For example, Vladislav Novozhilov, aka Lesley Knife, is a well-known Belarusian metal musician and former vocalist of the band Gods Tower. He was put on the list on October 28.
A court gave the musician three years in prison for comment under a video left in August 2020. In the comment, he wrote that one local authority representative was „an extremely stupid hog“. According to Vladislav, the man was offended by the word „stupid“, and an expert examination confirmed he was right. Vladislav Novozhilov was due to start serving his sentence in September 2021 but fled the country instead.
„[Being an extremist] is a confession. But once you've laughed it off, you start to think: what problems does the status entail? On the other hand, looking at the number of these extremists and terrorists, you think: this is a formality...
Besides, their left-hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I wanted information, but this list says I'm serving a sentence. It feels contradictory. But I'll walk around, think about the day – and I'll probably like it,“ he says.
What is extremism in Belarus? Vladislav believes that people who are disloyal to the authorities can be referred to as extremists. However, he believes that the concept of extremism in Belarus is strongly devalued:
„Those who aren't cops are extremists. Even cops are extremists if they subscribe to the wrong Telegram channel, for example, the [independent newspaper] Nasha Niva. The minority in Belarus has seized power and is trying by all means to keep it. It is trying to keep power for a long time, but it is making a lot of mistakes. It will be a historical phenomenon if they keep the power for more than ten years. But they will ruin a pretty good economy – and that's a problem.“
There are now 1,332 recognised poly-prisoners in Belarus. In addition, about 4,200 criminal cases were filed for extremism and terrorism in 2020–2021 alone.
