OREANDA-NEWS. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus announced the recognition of the Telegram channel «Chai s Malinavym Varennyem» (can be translated as «Tea with raspberry jam»), which covered the protests in the republic after the 2020 elections, as extremist. This was announced by the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic on Wednesday, September 1. The storage of extremist materials, as well as subscribing to Telegram channels and chats recognized as extremist, entail administrative responsibility, the department recalled.

At the time of publication, the channel had more than 142 thousand subscribers. The creators regularly post satirical pictures, jokes and short stories in it. During the protests that began in Belarus after the presidential election in August 2020, the channel's authors covered what was happening in the republic and published photos and videos from the demonstrations.

In mid-July, a wave of searches of journalists, mass media and human rights defenders took place in Belarus. At the end of the same month, the court of the Zheleznodorozhny district of Gomel recognized the materials of the website and pages in social networks of the Polish TV channel «Belsat» as extremist. However, the channel will continue to work, the team assured him.

And in mid-August, the court of the Central District of Minsk, at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic, issued a similar verdict against the Belarusian non-governmental online publication Tut.by and it's analogues in social networks and messengers. Experts considered that this information resource is aimed «at inciting social hostility or discord, organizing and carrying out mass riots». The team Zerkalo.io — a new media launched by the Tut.by team in early July, — intends to appeal the verdict and promised not to stop working.