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Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily since 2020. Emojis, likes, simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone... We call

Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily since 2020. Emojis, likes, simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone... We call border crossing, either on land or thought airport, a "Belarusian roulette", because your never know... And it is not prominent people, just regular folks. And it is not in completely different culture - it is a very close to western traditions country, right across Poland's border...

arp242 2y ago
I work on an organisation that does anti-corruption reporting. We have some software for that and the search box has "Vladimir Putin, TeliaSonera" as a placeholder example. Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot). We had some discussions about whether that was completely paranoid and stupid, or whether it was somewhat reasonable/understandable. I was firmly in the last camp. Yes, maybe the chance of actually suffering consequences is small and in that sense it's paranoid, but people buy lottery tickets with a lower chance of winning. The arbitrariness of it is the point.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Stifling thought crime does indeed seem best by punishing even trivial offenses. The gestapo cannot be everywhere, so encourage people to self censor or else.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
  [dead]
- quotz 2y ago
  If he was from the balkans his reason was definitely false and he just didnt wanna work at your place. We dont have that here, especially not for leaders not from our countries
  - arp242 2y ago
    Like I said, I don't recall exactly where he was from and can't be bothered to look it up, because it doesn't matter. But just because most people from location X don't have opinion Y, doesn't mean some don't. Either way, I certainly don't think he was making stuff up. He could have left at any time without any reason. We weren't holding him captive.
    - quotz 2y ago
      I reread your comment now I apologize. He was afraid of not getting arrested in Russia, rather then in his home country in the balkans. My bad.
      - arp242 2y ago
        Not so much arrested as denied entry.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Unfortunately his concerns are all too reasonable. Here's a recent case where Putin's people had a dual Russian-American citizen arrested while visiting her family, and then slapped with a 12-year jail term for the crime of donating $51 to a humanitarian charity (from within the US): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russia-citizen-ksenia-karelina-treason-sentence/74808740007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russ... While small, the chance of getting caught up in these shenanigans is far higher than that of buying a winning lottery ticket. And the potential penalties much worse than could be alleviated by most any prize won in the lottery. (If they were from one of Russia's allies, such as Serbia or Hungary, they probably wouldn't have much to worry about. But if they're from a NATO country, then definitely so).
  - netsharc 2y ago
    She's definitely unlucky that Putin was looking to replenish his supply of prisoners he can exchange for gun runners, etc, in Western prisons...
  - riehwvfbk 2y ago
    "Humanitarian" charity is not exactly a fitting description of the organization she donated to (though I agree that the sentence is out of proportion). To flip this around: imagine that someone was going through US customs and border clearance, and it became known that they donated money towards Russian FPV drones that hit Ukraine. Would you support giving this person a jail term or not? Now imagine that this person is a US citizen. Does that change your answer?
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Can you provide us with any indications that the charity in question (Razom) channelled money towards actual military drones for Ukraine? We see they had a project in 2022 that did provide some drones, but this seems to have been in the context of supporting search and rescue operations and the like, not military operations. Razom maintains that it does not provide military supplies of any kind. Let alone "weapons and ammunition" per the FSB charges. Overall the charges seem to have as much credibility as the initial charge against her of "swearing in a public place".
avodonosov 2y ago
> Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily .... simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone I live in Belarus, haven't heard of anyone locked for news cached on their phone. Could you provide sources of that info? I read all kinds of news, what if I am in danger...
- hippich 2y ago
  I can't find it easily now, but it was Zerkalo reporting on yet another person returning to Belarus caught at the Poland border. The conclusion was that despite not being subscribed to one of the "terrorists channel" (for readers not from Belarus - news channels, that are posting news not in favor of the state), mere opening such channel will cache images from such channel locally. When authorities grab the phone, they make full dump of it and look for illegal stuff. And mere possession of such image is enough to get locked up. Proposed solution was - disable all media caching in Telegram.
  - avodonosov 2y ago
    If you find the source in the coming days, while the HN thread is not yet blocked for posting - please share. I'd like to be aware of facts like this. Question. If you read Belarusian news, have you noticed that tut.by, being a quite decent, balanced news site in, say, 2013, 2014, in last years of its existence, maybe 2018, 2019, 2020 was quickly degrading, somewhere towards the Radio of the Thousand Hills? Deliberately falsifying the picture of reality for its readers? (Personally, by the beginning of 2020, long before the election, I had a text in mind, called "Осторожно, tut.by". Just didn't have time to write it up and publish.)
    - hippich 2y ago
      I did not notice deliberate attempts like that, but in the vacuum created post 2020 there is not much left to be trusted besides zerkalo. They rely on sources they likely can not verify all the time, and as such they do make mistakes occasionally and post corrections - this indeed happens from time to time. If you have suggestions of better source of news - please share.

arp242 2y ago

I work on an organisation that does anti-corruption reporting. We have some software for that and the search box has "Vladimir Putin, TeliaSonera" as a placeholder example. Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot). We had some discussions about whether that was completely paranoid and stupid, or whether it was somewhat reasonable/understandable. I was firmly in the last camp. Yes, maybe the chance of actually suffering consequences is small and in that sense it's paranoid, but people buy lottery tickets with a lower chance of winning. The arbitrariness of it is the point.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Stifling thought crime does indeed seem best by punishing even trivial offenses. The gestapo cannot be everywhere, so encourage people to self censor or else.
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
[dead]
quotz 2y ago
If he was from the balkans his reason was definitely false and he just didnt wanna work at your place. We dont have that here, especially not for leaders not from our countries
- arp242 2y ago
  Like I said, I don't recall exactly where he was from and can't be bothered to look it up, because it doesn't matter. But just because most people from location X don't have opinion Y, doesn't mean some don't. Either way, I certainly don't think he was making stuff up. He could have left at any time without any reason. We weren't holding him captive.
  - quotz 2y ago
    I reread your comment now I apologize. He was afraid of not getting arrested in Russia, rather then in his home country in the balkans. My bad.
    - arp242 2y ago
      Not so much arrested as denied entry.
aguaviva 2y ago
Unfortunately his concerns are all too reasonable. Here's a recent case where Putin's people had a dual Russian-American citizen arrested while visiting her family, and then slapped with a 12-year jail term for the crime of donating $51 to a humanitarian charity (from within the US): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russia-citizen-ksenia-karelina-treason-sentence/74808740007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russ... While small, the chance of getting caught up in these shenanigans is far higher than that of buying a winning lottery ticket. And the potential penalties much worse than could be alleviated by most any prize won in the lottery. (If they were from one of Russia's allies, such as Serbia or Hungary, they probably wouldn't have much to worry about. But if they're from a NATO country, then definitely so).
- netsharc 2y ago
  She's definitely unlucky that Putin was looking to replenish his supply of prisoners he can exchange for gun runners, etc, in Western prisons...
- riehwvfbk 2y ago
  "Humanitarian" charity is not exactly a fitting description of the organization she donated to (though I agree that the sentence is out of proportion). To flip this around: imagine that someone was going through US customs and border clearance, and it became known that they donated money towards Russian FPV drones that hit Ukraine. Would you support giving this person a jail term or not? Now imagine that this person is a US citizen. Does that change your answer?
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Can you provide us with any indications that the charity in question (Razom) channelled money towards actual military drones for Ukraine? We see they had a project in 2022 that did provide some drones, but this seems to have been in the context of supporting search and rescue operations and the like, not military operations. Razom maintains that it does not provide military supplies of any kind. Let alone "weapons and ammunition" per the FSB charges. Overall the charges seem to have as much credibility as the initial charge against her of "swearing in a public place".

avodonosov 2y ago

> Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily .... simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone I live in Belarus, haven't heard of anyone locked for news cached on their phone. Could you provide sources of that info? I read all kinds of news, what if I am in danger...

hippich 2y ago
I can't find it easily now, but it was Zerkalo reporting on yet another person returning to Belarus caught at the Poland border. The conclusion was that despite not being subscribed to one of the "terrorists channel" (for readers not from Belarus - news channels, that are posting news not in favor of the state), mere opening such channel will cache images from such channel locally. When authorities grab the phone, they make full dump of it and look for illegal stuff. And mere possession of such image is enough to get locked up. Proposed solution was - disable all media caching in Telegram.
- avodonosov 2y ago
  If you find the source in the coming days, while the HN thread is not yet blocked for posting - please share. I'd like to be aware of facts like this. Question. If you read Belarusian news, have you noticed that tut.by, being a quite decent, balanced news site in, say, 2013, 2014, in last years of its existence, maybe 2018, 2019, 2020 was quickly degrading, somewhere towards the Radio of the Thousand Hills? Deliberately falsifying the picture of reality for its readers? (Personally, by the beginning of 2020, long before the election, I had a text in mind, called "Осторожно, tut.by". Just didn't have time to write it up and publish.)
  - hippich 2y ago
    I did not notice deliberate attempts like that, but in the vacuum created post 2020 there is not much left to be trusted besides zerkalo. They rely on sources they likely can not verify all the time, and as such they do make mistakes occasionally and post corrections - this indeed happens from time to time. If you have suggestions of better source of news - please share.