Belarus adds journalist Daria Chultsova’s Instagram to “extremist resources” list

On the evening of Octo­ber 13, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus once again updat­ed the Nation­al List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als on its web­site. The lat­est addi­tion is an Insta­gram account named Daria (user­name dari­ashulc, as spelled on the ministry’s web­site). The account belongs to Daria Chultso­va, a for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er and a video jour­nal­ist for the Bel­sat TV chan­nel.

Daria Chultso­va. Screen­shot from the Chest­nOK-Live chan­nel, 2025

The deci­sion was made on Octo­ber 9, 2026 by the Bia­lyn­ichy Dis­trict Court of Mahilou Region.

The account has near­ly a thou­sand fol­low­ers. “Please, every­one who is in Belarus and fol­lows me, unfol­low me!” Chultso­va appealed to them after learn­ing that her Insta­gram page had been des­ig­nat­ed “extrem­ist infor­ma­tion­al prod­uct.”

Bel­sat jour­nal­ists Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Daria Chultso­va were detained on Novem­ber 15, 2020, in a high-rise apart­ment build­ing in Minsk’s well-known “Square of Changes” court­yard. They were cov­er­ing a street memo­r­i­al event for the mur­dered activist Raman Ban­daren­ka dur­ing a live broad­cast when they were detained.

The author­i­ties first drew up admin­is­tra­tive reports against Andreye­va and Chultso­va. The jour­nal­ists were accused of alleged­ly tak­ing part in an unau­tho­rized protest and of dis­obey­ing police. On Novem­ber 17, the Kas­trych­nit­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Min­sk pun­ished the jour­nal­ists for their pro­fes­sion­al work with sev­en days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion.

Mean­while, a crim­i­nal case was opened against the jour­nal­ists over the same livestream over alleged orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that con­sti­tute a severe breach of pub­lic order. The inves­ti­ga­tion claimed that Kat­siary­na and Daria’s livestream had alleged­ly caused the sus­pen­sion of 13 bus routes, three trol­ley­bus routes, and three tram routes (although most of these routes have noth­ing to do with the Square of Changes at all). The inves­ti­ga­tors put the dam­age to Min­sk­trans, the munic­i­pal pub­lic trans­port oper­a­tor, at $4,464.

Accord­ing to the sen­tence, Daria Chultso­va spent two years behind bars.