Belarusian news site says editor was detained

The chief editor of a popular Belarusian news site was reportedly detained on Sunday and his home searched as President Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime cracks down on independent journalists.

The Associated Press reports that Aliaksei Shota, editor of Hrodna.life, was detained with police officers saying he was being investigated on suspicion of extremism. His website primarily focuses on Grodno, Belarus’s fifth-largest city, the AP notes.

Without providing details, authorities said Shota “posted information products that were duly recognized as extremist.” After being detained for several hours, Shota was released, though officers had confiscated computer hard drives from his home.

The AP notes Shota had collaborated with Belarus’s most popular internet portal Tut.by, before it was shut down by the government this month after 15 employees were arrested.

Shota’s arrest comes about one week after Poland-based Belarusian opposition reporter Raman Pratasevich was detained after Lukashenko had the plane he was on diverted to Belarus’s capital city of Minsk.

The interference with a European flight and Pratasevich’s arrest has garnered widespread condemnation from western governments, including the U.S. and the EU.

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would be reimposing sanctions on multiple Belarusian entities in response to the diversion of Pratasevich’s flight.

“Belarus’s forced diversion of a commercial Ryanair flight under false pretenses, traveling between two member states of the European Union, and the subsequent removal and arrest of Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian journalist, are a direct affront to international norms,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.