World
Exclusive: Euronews ‘extremist’ label is Lukashenka’s revenge, Tsikhanouskaya said
Belarus’ decision to classify Euronews as “extremist” is an act of revenge for its reporting on the country’s disputed 2020 election, political prisoners and Russia’s war against Ukraine, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Friday.
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In an exclusive interview with Euronews, Tsikhanouskaya said the move showed that Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s government remained afraid of independent information six years after the mass protests that followed the presidential election.
“It is revenge – revenge by the regime for Euronews’ reporting,” she said.
“Euronews covered the 2020 protests, it covered the election, which Lukashenka lost. It covered the stories of political prisoners and the war, which started from Belarus.”
Belarusian information ministry placed Euronews’ website on its “Republican List of Extremist Materials,” according to Belarus-based media. The ruling is subject to immediate execution under Belarusian civil procedure rules.
The decision means access to the Euronews website will now be restricted in Belarus, while readers could face administrative penalties for storing or distributing its content.
Euronews’ television broadcast was already banned in Belarus in 2021.
Tsikhanouskaya noted called the decisions “hypocritical” given that Lukashenka himself gave an interview to Euronews before.
“Now even watching them can be considered a crime in Belarus”.
She warned that the designation could turn viewing and sharing independent news into a pretext for repression.
“Watching Euronews or reading the Euronews website can land you in jail. Sharing Euronews news can become a crime.”
The ruling gave the regime and its law enforcement agency KGB “another excuse to prosecute people who are simply looking for information”, Tsikhanouskaya said, adding that journalists, contributors and those assisting news organisations could also be at risk.
Her comments come ahead of the sixth anniversary of the August 2020 election, which was followed by an unprecedented wave of peaceful demonstrations against Lukashenka’s declared victory.
The opposition, the EU and many western governments rejected the result as fraudulent.
The authorities responded with a sweeping crackdown on protesters, activists, independent media and civil society.
Tsikhanouskaya said repression had become the operating principle of the state because the government feared that a relaxation could trigger another public uprising.
“If it stops, people will rise up again,” she said. “Constant, systemic repression has become the modus operandi of the entire system.”
She added that arrests continued daily and that the true scale of the crackdown remained unclear because many detainees were not publicly identified.
“Under such terror, visible protest is almost impossible. It has gone underground,” she said. “But I know that people haven’t given up. They are waiting and preparing for new momentum.”
The opposition leader, who lives in exile, argued that control of information was central to the government’s survival. Millions of Belarusians still follow independent outlets covertly, she said, using virtual private networks and other tools to bypass censorship.
“Independent media are the backbone of our movement,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
She stated that independent reporting had helped ensure that many Belarusians understood the reality of Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite official propaganda, and that most supported Ukraine.
But she warned that the state was adapting as quickly as citizens. “The KGB often uses tech platforms to track, identify, and prosecute opponents,” she said, adding that her team was working with companies including Meta and Alphabet to ensure their platforms were not used to facilitate persecution.
Tsikhanouskaya advised people in Belarus to make digital security a priority, including by using VPNs, keeping separate devices for accessing independent media and avoiding contact with unknown accounts that could be linked to security services.
She said Belarusians were also advised to regularly clear their phones, use pseudonyms online and avoid responding to unknown contacts, which could be attempts by the KGB to recruit or blackmail them. Some independent outlets use accounts that are not branded as “extremist”, she said, allowing audiences to continue accessing information under difficult conditions.
“Difficult conditions force us to be creative,” she said. “That is the only way to survive under a dictatorship.”
She said the “extremist” designation should not deter Euronews from continuing its work.
“Euronews can take this designation as a badge of honour,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
“Many decent people and organisations have been declared ‘extremist’ by the dictator. It means your work matters.”
Despite the crackdown, she urged Belarusians not to see the democratic movement as defeated.
“Our struggle has not ended. It has simply taken a different form,” she said. “It is no longer a sprint, but a marathon.”
Tsikhanouskaya said a strong Ukraine and a weakened Russia could create an opening for democratic change in Belarus, arguing that Lukashenka’s government depended on the Kremlin’s support.
“Without Russian support, Lukashenka’s regime will not survive,” she said. “That is why so many Belarusians hope for Ukraine’s victory.”
Tsikhanouskaya urged western partners to see Belarus “not only as a problem, but also as an opportunity”, arguing that democratic forces must be ready to seize any opening created by a shift in the regional balance of power.
“Dictatorships often collapse when no one expects it,” she said.
Belarusians wanted peaceful change through free elections, without violence, and a future in Europe rather than under Russian control, she said.
“A free, democratic and independent Belarus would make Europe much safer for everyone.”
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When Britain’s former Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood down as the member of parliament for Holborn and St Pancras this week, he ended more than a decade representing a seat that has never elected anyone but a Labour MP since it was established in 1983.
The by-election it triggered which is expected later this year would ordinarily be a formality, but instead, it has become the most closely watched contest of the parliamentary term.
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That is because Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, the self-styled “eco-populist”, who has taken his party from the margins to double-digit polling in a year, announced on Thursday that he will seek nomination for the seat. He now needs to be chosen by local party members as the Green candidate for the seat.
Voting records offer him both encouragement and a warning.
Starmer won 48.9 per cent of the vote in 2024; the Greens finished third on 10.4 per cent, behind a pro-Palestinian independent, Andrew Feinstein.
But in the Camden council elections in May, the borough the constituency is in, the Greens won 28.8 percent across its wards to Labour’s 38.8, taking seats in Starmer’s own patch for the first time.
Al Jazeera spoke to political scientists and election analysts about whether Polanski has a realistic path to Westminster.
A Green win would be a ‘surprise’
Since Polanski became Green Party leader a year ago, it has achieved some success in taking support from Labour’s left.
That includes a surprise by-election victory in Greater Manchester, while the party is currently polling as high as 20 percent nationally.
Despite the Green Party’s recent results in Camden, experts say that Holborn and St Pancras is a strong Labour seat.
“A Green win would be a surprise,” Jonathan Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, told Al Jazeera.
For that to change, he said, the current prime minister and Labour leader, Andy Burnham, would have to see his “honeymoon period” end quickly. A “disastrous budget” on October 28 could do just that, he added.
He also said the timing of the by-election is key.
“If Burnham has a good party conference in Liverpool (in late September), the honeymoon should continue until that budget at least; the later the by-election, the trickier for Labour. They will want a quick contest.”
Burnham came to power after nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester and arrived untainted by scandals.
To many Britons, it felt refreshing, after Starmer’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington – despite his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
In an August YouGov survey, 46 percent of Britons had a favourable opinion of Burnham.
In contrast to Starmer’s lawyerly caution, Burnham brings a more down-to-earth, outsider style that seeks to cut through Westminster politics, an approach that Polanski has echoed.
Polanski’s history at play
Polanski’s critics have said he would look parachuted in, while he says he has lived and worked in the area for years.
Polanski told Camden New Journal, “I have lived and worked in this community over many years. I know it well, and I love it”.
“It represents so many of the things that make London so special. I am so excited by the prospect of representing this place in Parliament,” he is quoted as saying.
But Tonge said Polanski is seen “as too left-wing by some voters who prefer the safer Labour option”.
The so-called “Burnham bounce” Labour is revelling in may also hamper Polanski’s chances, he said.
The Green leader’s political history may also stand in his way, John McTernan, political secretary to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, told Al Jazeera, pointing out that Polanski first stood in the constituency in 2015 as a Liberal Democrat, winning 96 votes in a Camden council by-election.
He also had to apologise earlier this year over a council tax issue on his houseboat, with a Green Party spokesperson saying: “Zack apologises sincerely for the unintentional mistake”.
He later admitted he had not voted in May’s local election, saying he had been moving and “fell short of time” to register at his new address.
Greens may have ‘peaked’: Expert
The Greens have never been here before. From 2010 to 2024, they had just one MP.
That changed in February when the Greens won the Gorton and Denton by-election. Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, won 40.7 per cent of the vote in an area Labour had represented since 1931.
It marked the Greens’ first-ever parliamentary by-election win, their highest by-election vote share by a margin of 30 points. The win ushered in their first MP in the north of England.
In May, across London, they went from 18 council seats to 279, taking six boroughs and winning their first directly elected mayors in Hackney and Lewisham, while Labour recorded its worst London local result since 1968. Nationally, the party won 587 seats, its highest ever.
The Greens have momentum on their side but may have “peaked”, said Tonge.
McTernan said Polanski should be wary of conflating this year’s successes with evidence of his own popularity. He should instead see them as dissatisfaction with Starmer and a “message sent by progressive voters” that they didn’t want him.
The August YouGov survey also shows that just 19 percent of Britons now have a favourable opinion of Polanski, down seven points from his peak in April.
McTernan said putting Polanski forward may hamper the Greens as “by-elections often punish candidates perceived as focused on their own self-importance”.
He pointed to Clacton, where Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right, anti-immigration party Reform UK, resigned his seat in July amid scrutiny of his finances and then recontested it.
With the main parties boycotting that election, the satirical candidate Count Binface, a comedian who campaigns wearing a bin on his head, took 26.7 percent of the vote, the highest share ever won by a novelty candidate in a British parliamentary election.
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