In mid-November, human rights defenders reported a new wave of detentions in Belarus. Against this backdrop, on November 19, Victoria Kirichenko, host of the “Minsk News” YouTube channel’s anti-fake segment, asserted that all information from those who do not support the government is fabricated.
“Bad news for the extremists who call themselves human rights defenders <...> Those who collaborate with these organizations have been tracked by our professionals and punished for breaking the law. As a result, they have nothing to fabricate provocations from, which means there will soon be no money — or they may already have none. The extremists themselves are saying this. All informants are imprisoned. To prove to their superiors that they are still capable of something, these unfortunate individuals have to invent information from thin air,” the host explained, providing a screenshot from the YouTube show “Ordinary Morning” as evidence.
The screenshot features political analyst Artyom Shraibman, with the discussion topic being “All Informants Are Imprisoned.”
While reviewing “Ordinary Morning” episodes, the WTF team found the one that stands as a source for the screenshot for the “Minsk News” YouTube channel. The topic Artyom Shraibman discussed with the hosts was “Lukashenko in the Elections.”
We identified the moment captured in the screenshot thanks to the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.
The discussion indeed focused on informants for human rights organizations. Artyom Shraibman explained why there was more information about detentions in the Belarusian regions than in the capital. He suggested that the security forces were more intensively cleaning up Minsk, which was reported less because there was no one left to gather and relay information:
“It’s very difficult to draw conclusions from this data right now because many people have been arrested due to their connections with human rights defenders. It’s quite possible that in Minsk, the network of human rights informants has been so thoroughly dismantled that we simply have no idea what’s happening there.”
Host Victoria Kirichenko highlighted a real issue — there may not be enough people in Belarus willing to cooperate with human rights defenders, which could lead to incomplete information about repression in the capital. However, the generalization that they have no means to verify information at all is misleading.
