DW Director General denounces Belarus decision

Belarusian authorities yesterday classified the Telegram channel of DW Belarus, information services and the Deutsche Welle (DW) logo as "extremist."

Berlin DW-Intendant Peter Limbourg
DW Director General Peter Limbourg has strongly condemned the decision by the Belarusian ministry of internal affairsImage: Carsten Koall/dpa/picture alliance

In a statment, DW Director General Peter Limbourg denounced the decision, saying "The blocking of our websites in Belarus in October 2021 was already an unbelievable encroachment on press freedom. The recent announcement of the criminalization of the DW logo proves how nervous the regime there is," he said.

 "DW is still informing many people in Belarus via tools for bypassing censors. Especially following the attack on Ukraine, the numbers have significantly increased. Now they want to use cheap tricks to create pseudo-legal grounds to take action against people who make use of their right to free speech." 

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus released a statement on March 9: "The Minsk Central District Court, based on material from the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, has classified the information products of the Telegram channel and the DW Belarus chat as extremist material."