Belarus Suspends Top Media Site, High-Tech Hackers Turn On Lukashenko

Facing weeks of unrelenting protests against what critics call a rigged re-election, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's government suspended the country's top independent news site as high tech pros formed a hacking collective disrupting state-run propaganda stations.

With the European Union so far having not imposed sanctions, the United Kingdom and Canada now put penalties on the government.

They accused Lukashenko, who, after being in power for 26 years goes by the nickname of Europe's Last Dictator, of fixing the election, with protesters jailed, allegedly tortured, raped and killed to keep his reign of terror and power going. Support for Lukashenko comes from Moscow.

International sanctions include travel bans and the freezing of assets for Lukashenko and his top officials.

The top independent news site Tut.by was shut down for at least three months because it had been covering protests against Lukashenko, who claimed victory over major rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

The Information Ministry had been trying legally to close the site permanently, citing its coverage of "information whose broadcasting is forbidden" as reported by "government organs“.

Tut has been pressured from the state for showing the protests. Now, the site is confirming it had "lost its media status from October 1" and with it the right to transmit information from "conflict or risk zones, large demonstrations and socially important events,” according to The Moscow Times.

Tikhanovskaya, in exile in Lithuania, said the move was an attempt by the regime "to prolong its existence.” Her press service quoted her as saying, “The regime today showed how it deprives Belarusians of their right to truth.”

Meanwhile, Lukashenko's authoritarian style has run head-on into the digital age and the high-tech industry his government helped set up has turned on him.

30,000 coders and software engineers, many of whom are linked to the state-sponsored Hi-Tech Park in Minsk, formed a hacking collective called Cyber Partisans to go use their skills against the government’s repressive methods, The Daily Beast reported.

They hacked into the Belarusian TV and Radio Company website, the national state media organisation, and showed 30 minutes of footage of security forces using violent force against protestors instead of the usual state news.

“The guy who created this is a real hero,” one of the hackers told The Daily Beast. “He spent about one week to prepare everything. He was a few days without sleep,” Belarus' hackers a creative force now acting for good.

The hackers are also unmasking, online, the hooded security forces rounding up protesters, making their names and faces visible to the people through their electronic know-how, some operating from Warsaw, Poland.

“We want to show that they will not be able to hide behind masks and remain anonymous in their atrocities,” Yan Verbitsky, who works for NEXTA, an independent, anti-Lukashenko media organisation told the news site.

“NOBODY STAYS ANONYMOUS,” was the message eventually sent to two million Belarusians. It came at the start of a post releasing the names, addresses, dates of birth, and car registrations of 12 senior police officials accused of violence.

NEXTA, which is run out of the Polish capital, released the alleged identities of a dozen senior police officers via their channel NEXTA Live, on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Since then, they have gone on to release the names of over 2,000 more. Yan said: “(Lukashenko) is not able to ensure the security of the data of his own minions.”

The Cyber Partisans claim to have seized over 10,000 names of individuals involved in the security services taken directly from the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and provided it to NEXTA.

The security services are being used by Lukashenko to hold on to power, said to be highly paid, well-equipped and determined to crush dissent – before they ran into the hackers.

“We warned you: you won’t be able to hide under Balaclavas, Lukashenko,” said NEXTA.