The head of the department of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption ( GUBOPiK ) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Vyacheslav Orlovsky proposed to deprive the citizens of Belarusians who left the country and work for Western countries. He announced this to the publication “SB. Belarus today ”.

People who fled our country, hate it and today work in the interests of Western countries, should not have the right to be called Belarusians … As a result, they will not be able to come to Belarus in a free manner, will not be able to participate in electoral processes, public and political life of the state.

The Constitution of Belarus explicitly prohibits depriving Belarusians of citizenship. The 10th article of the Constitution says : “No one can be deprived of the citizenship of the Republic of Belarus or the right to change citizenship.”

In June, a law came into force in Belarus, allowing the authorities to deprive Belarusian citizenship of people found guilty of extremist, terrorist crimes or calls for actions that harm national security. The law applies to people who have acquired Belarusian citizenship. It prohibits the revocation of citizenship from those who acquired it by birth.

On October 13, the GUBOP telegram channel, which is considered an unofficial GUBOPiK channel, reported without citing sources that subscribers of more than 100 telegram channels declared “extremist” would face up to seven years in prison. A few days later, Vyacheslav Orlovsky , a representative of GUBOPiK, said that subscription to banned telegram channels “is not yet punishable.”

Against the background of news about the persecution of subscribers of Telegram channels, declared “extremist”, the number of subscribers of the largest Belarusian opposition channel Nexta Live fell from 989 to 947 thousand people.

(c)MEDUZA 2021