Incident
Belarus: Deutsche Welle and other outlets labeled 'extremist'
BelarusRSF 2026 rank: 165th of 180
- Official labels
- Stage Pressure
- Sustained
A Minsk court declared all output from German broadcaster Deutsche Welle "extremist," alongside a local newspaper and a Russian blogger's videos, making it a crime to produce, store or share the labeled material, as a former correspondent was jailed the same week.1234
What happened
On March 3, 2022, a Minsk district court sentenced Aleh Hruzdzilovich, a former correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to a year and a half in prison over his participation in three protests in 2020. Days later, on March 9, 2022, Minsk's Central District Court declared all information products of Deutsche Welle, Germany's public broadcaster, to be extremist material, effectively banning the outlet inside Belarus. The same order labeled the independent newspaper Regionalnaya Gazeta and videos by Russian blogger Yuriy Dud extremist as well, bringing the total number of outlets Belarus had designated extremist to 20. Under Belarusian law, anyone convicted of producing, storing or sharing material labeled extremist can be fined up to 960 rubles or detained for up to 15 days; Belarus's information ministry separately warned that even subscribing to a labeled outlet's Telegram channel could lead to prosecution.1234
Sustained as of the source reviewed.1234
What reason was given
Stated justification
What changed for reporting
The designation made it a punishable offense inside Belarus to read, store or share Deutsche Welle's reporting, cutting off a foreign broadcaster's audience by criminalizing the audience's own conduct rather than the broadcaster's.23
Timeline
2022
Who acted
| Name | Role in this incident | Office at the time |
|---|---|---|
| Alexander Lukashenko | other | President of Belarus |
| Central District Court, Minsk | other | Belarusian court that issued the extremist designations |
Outlets and journalists
| Name | Kind | Relation |
|---|---|---|
| Deutsche Welle | outlet | affected |
| Regionalnaya Gazeta | outlet | affected |
| Aleh Hruzdzilovich | journalist, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | affected |
Sources
- Belarus authorities sentence journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to prison, label more media 'extremist'
- Belarus classifies Deutsche Welle as 'extremist'
Claims and evidence
Each numbered claim quotes the source it rests on.
- The scope of the March 9, 2022 order against Deutsche Welle.
On Wednesday, March 9, the Central District Court in Minsk declared all "information products" by DW extremist, effectively banning the broadcaster in the country
Belarus authorities sentence journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to prison, label more media 'extremist', Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022-03-11.Claim 695, checked 2026-09-22. - The penalty for producing, storing or sharing extremist-labeled material.
Anyone convicted of producing, storing, or spreading materials designated extremist can be fined up to 960 rubles (US$290) or detained for up to 15 days,
Belarus authorities sentence journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to prison, label more media 'extremist', Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022-03-11.Claim 696, checked 2026-09-22. - Warning issued alongside the designation.
The MDCOCC announcement about DW warned of prosecution even for subscribing to Telegram channels and chats of outlets designated as extremist.
Belarus authorities sentence journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to prison, label more media 'extremist', Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022-03-11.Claim 697, checked 2026-09-22. - Scale of Belarus's use of the extremist label against media by this point.
The designations of DW and Regionalnaya Gazeta as extremist takes the number of media outlets labelled as such to 20,
Belarus authorities sentence journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to prison, label more media 'extremist', Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022-03-11.Claim 698, checked 2026-09-22.