Siarhei Chabotska, owner of s13.ru, not released after administrative detention

The 15-day admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion of Siarhei Chabot­ka, the pro­pri­etor of the Hrod­na news por­tal s13.ru, has con­clud­ed. How­ev­er, he has not been released, accord­ing to a recent report from Hrodna.life.

Siarhei Chabot­s­ka. Pho­to: Social media

The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the next admin­is­tra­tive court pro­ceed­ing remain unclear. Accord­ing to Hrodna.life, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that Siarhei Chabot­s­ka was tak­en into cus­tody.

On Octo­ber 23, 2024, Siarhei Chabot­ka, the own­er of the largest Hrod­na news por­tal, s13.ru, was detained. Since that date, the site has not been updat­ed. On Octo­ber 25, Siarhei was sen­tenced to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for dis­tri­b­u­tion, pro­duc­tion, stor­age, trans­porta­tion of infor­ma­tion prod­ucts con­tain­ing calls to «extrem­ist activ­i­ty» or pro­pa­gan­da for such activ­i­ty.

On Novem­ber 6, the edi­tor of s13.ru was con­vict­ed for the sec­ond time for vio­lat­ing the estab­lished order of hold­ing a meet­ing, ral­ly, street pro­ces­sion, demon­stra­tion, pick­et, or oth­er mass event.

The third tri­al took place on Novem­ber 22 for dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als.» On Octo­ber 30, it was announced that the con­tent of s13.ru and its Telegram chan­nel had been rec­og­nized as «extrem­ist mate­ri­als.»