At a meeting with presidential candidates, the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Andrei Ravkov did not rule out the restriction of the Internet at rallies that may take place on election days. This was announced to TASS by the presidential candidate of the republic Andrei Dmitriev on Thursday, July 30.
According to Dmitriev, when asked whether it is possible to restrict the Internet, Ravkov replied that if Belarus “thinks that a direct threat to the country’s security comes from there, then such a step is not completely ruled out.”
The presidential elections in Belarus are scheduled for August 9. The country’s Central Election Commission registered five people as candidates – Andrei Dmitriev, Anna Kanopatskaya, Alexander Lukashenko, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Sergei Cherechenya.
Two applicants – Viktor Babariko and Valery Tsepkalo – were denied registration.
On the evening of July 14, rallies in support of unregistered presidential candidates were held in Minsk and other cities of Belarus. As noted by the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 250 protesters were detained in Minsk.
Later, on July 28, the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Boris Goretsky said that nine media workers had been detained near the building of the State Security Committee in Minsk. Among them were correspondents of the Tut.by portal, TASS, and the Belsat TV channel. Then they were released from the Zavodskoy police department of the capital of the country.