Five criminal cases: Belarus authorities announce putting activist Matolka on wanted list
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against activist and popular blogger Anton Matolka, the Minsk department of the Belarusian Investigative Committee reports on Wednesday.
In addition, the agency is carrying out the work on recognising his online resource as extremist in the territory of Belarus.
Anton Matolka blogs about the developments in the country on its Telegram channel MotolkoHelp; it has more than 130 thousand subscribers.
During the investigation in cooperation with the Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption, the committee opened five criminal cases under the following articles of the Criminal Code:
- Art 293 (‘mass riots);
- Art. 342 (‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’);
- Art. 130-3 (‘inciting social hatred according to profession’);
- Art. 361-1 (‘setting up an extremist group’);
- Art. 361-3 (’actions aimed at destabilisation of social, political, economic, information situation in the country, causing damage to the national security of the Republic of Belarus’).
In the near future, formal charges are to be levelled against Anton Matolka, which os to be followed by putting him on the interstate wanted list, Investigative Committee states.
