Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus

Article 361-4, "assisting extremist activity", was added by the 2021 amendments to the Criminal Code after the 2020 protests. It punishes assisting extremist activity or an extremist formation, including by transferring information, money or other resources, with up to six years and, for repeat acts, acts by a group, or by an official, up to seven. What makes it powerful is the extremist register: Belarus lists media outlets, Telegram channels, human-rights groups and diaspora initiatives as "extremist formations", so ordinary contact with them becomes the offence.

The documented cases are the everyday behaviour of a country whose independent media are all on the list: sending a photo of a queue or a policeman to a news channel, forwarding an article, answering a journalist's question, donating to a solidarity fund, giving an interview. Many defendants are charged years after the act, when a device is searched at the border or an old chat is examined. The year series below shows the article overtaking every other political charge from 2024, as the 2020 protest cases are exhausted and prosecutions shift to online contact.