2023-05-02 16:04:58
The “This Is Homel, Baby!” group on the social media site VKontakte (VK) is the most popular social platform serving the south-west of Belarus with about 136,000 members.
Alexander LukashenkoIn the protests after the scandalous 2020 presidential elections, in which he was re-elected as president, the group supported the demonstrators and distributed materials criticizing the police and the state.
After the protests ended and the opposition leaders were expelled from the country or imprisoned, the Homel group began to show a more neutral position. Focusing on local news such as poor road conditions and broken street lamps, the group also occasionally shared pro-government posts.
In mid-March, when subscribers visited the page, they saw that its name had been changed to “Homel – Glavnoye” (Homel – Main!).
The former admin of the group told RFE/RL’s Belarusian service on condition of anonymity: “The owner of the page sold it. The new owner fired all the editors and administrators. Now he either does everything himself or brings his own people.”
Similar events took place in Vitebsk, Mogilyov, Zhlobin, Orsha and other cities. The famous local newsgroups started operating again in the same form, under the name “Glavnoye”. Online histories show that they were founded in different years up to 2012, but as of mid-March they were all operating under new names.
Freedom radio
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