Belarusian journalist Ruslan Raviaka has been detained since December 2024 on extremism charges. Raviaka is a former reporter with the shuttered independent outlet Intex-Press.
Raviaka was detained December 5, 2024, in the western city of Baranavichy along with an undisclosed number of former Intex-Press journalists. After being stripped of its registration in 2022, Intex-Press’s office was raided in February 2023 by Baranavichy police, who seized laptops, system units and a camera. In April 2023, Intex-Press’s website and social media pages were designated “extremist materials.”
Belarus’ Criminal Code was amended to comply with a package of extremism legislation in 2021. Since then, the law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 35 media outlets, according to BAJ.
In February 2025, CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee for comment on the charges against Intex-Press journalists, including Raviaka, detained in late 2024 but did not receive a reply.