Defendant of 13 crimes: “special production” started in Belarus against the founder of NEXTA

Stepan Putilo, creator of the Belarusian news outlet Nexta, is charged with 13 crimes at the same time. Information about this was published on the website of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus.

On Thursday, December 8, Sledkom began trial in absentia in the case of the leaders of the Nexta organization. The blogger and journalist are on trial for the following crimes:

• deliberate acts committed by a group of people or negligently causing the death of a person, intended to incite racial, national, religious or other social hatred;
• fake;
• organization of riots;
• training or other preparation of persons for participation in mass uprisings;
• organizing group actions that grossly violate public order;
• training or other training of persons to participate in group activities that grossly violate public order;
• COMPLO;
• public calls for the seizure of state power through the media or the Internet;
• the creation of an extremist formation;
• financing of extremist activities;
• repeated slander against Alexander Lukashenko;
• Repeated insults to the President of Belarus;
• Discrediting Belarus

In addition to Putilo, a criminal case was also brought against Jan Rudik, a representative of the organization.

The Belarusian Investigative Committee announced that the relevant decision was accepted by the Prosecutor General.

Nexta commented on the criminal case against Putilo and Rudik

In response, the Nexta Telegram channel reported that “since they cannot deal with dissidents leaving the country violently (the country’s law enforcement — ed.) they need to be creative: concocting and executing fake criminal cases the same fake cases in absentia”.

Representatives of the news outlet consider the criminal cases brought against Putilo and Rudik to be unfounded.

Note that Nexta in Belarus is officially recognized as an extremist organization.

“When examining the information published on these Internet resources, the investigation was recorded and added to the materials of the criminal case, repeated facts indicating calls to protest, closures of roads, strikes, coordination of mass events without permission, specific venues and routes, explained the Sldekom decision of the Republic of Belarus.

Recall that in August 2020 Stepan Putilo was put on the international wanted list by the Belarusian authorities. A court in Minsk recognized the NEXTA-Live channel and its logo as extremist material.

In early February 2021, the Belarusian authorities sent documents to Poland for the extradition of Stepan Putilo and the editor-in-chief of this channel, Roman Protasevich.