Belarus
situation in Ukraine. The e-mail address from which the message was sent differs from that of the Party by only one character. Kaliakin hypothesized that government special services were involved in the deception. Two candidates for Bobruysk City Council associated with the opposition “Tell the Truth” campaign each received a threatening e-mail from M. Molchanova, a journalist with the Bobruysk Courier non-state regional newspaper (Бобруйский курьер). The journalist claims that someone else had created the fake account from which the e-mails were sent and also suspects that government special services were involved.
reported the distribution of provocative messages on his behalf from his e-mail account, though he claimed they did not originate with him. Mr. Burakov demanded that police investigate the author of these e-mails and bring them to justice, as well as block this e-mail account. The editorial staff of Nashaniva (Наша Ніва) weekly newspaper issued a statement about the creation of a fake Twitter account. According to the editorial staff, someone, with the help of this fake account and using the name, design elements, and content of the newspaper, disseminated information that had no relation to the newspaper. 2014 also occasionally saw problems with access to independent online media.
Journalist Marina Molchanova
On March 14, the independent Mogilev website, Free Format (Свободный формат), posted two articles allegedly written by Ales Lenevsky – the domain’s owner. The published materials discredited and humiliated opposition activists of the Mogilev oblast. All posts since September 9, 2013 were deleted from the website. The editorial staff of Free Format stated that the slanderous materials were posted as a result of the website being hacked. During these very days, Aleksandr Burakov, the Mogilev independent journalist, 52
On March 13, one of the largest Belarusian opposition information sources, “Charter-97” (Хартия-97), said that its website was under attack from hackers. Unknown attackers attempted for several hours to break into the website’s server before starting a DDoS attack. The website’s editorial staff suggested that the attack was linked to, “the active highlighting by charter97.org of events in Ukraine and the Russian aggression against our southern neighbour.” The website of Nashaniva independent newspaper was unavailable for several hours on March 25 while Minsk witnessed a procession dedicated to Freedom Day, an annual celebration by the democratic forces of Belarus. “We are most likely dealing with the intentional blocking on the part of Beltelecom,” Nashaniva online journalists suggested. “One couldn’t get on the website even using TOR… Perhaps, somebody is trying out “new tactics” on NN.BY before 2015 [the year of the next presidential elections] arrives?”