Viktar Prakapenya. Photo: BelTA
Media in Belarus are discussing the scandal caused by the deletion of articles about the detention in 2015 of the prominent IT businessman and a proponent of Decree No 8 "On the development of the digital economy" Viktar Prakapenya. Six months ago, several Belarusian media outlets deleted the archived articles about Prakapenya’s detention, the charges and the compensation he had paid "to compensate the damage." The articles in question were published in 2015. The businessman or his representatives asked to remove the articles, the mass media explained.
Nevertheless (or perhaps in response to the media frenzy), information about Parakapenya’s 2015 detention has appeared on Wikipedia in Russian and English. The English version also mentions the businessman’s attempts ‘to whitewash' the information from the internet:
"Some bloggers have subsequently accused Prakapenya of trying to whitewash the information about his imprisonment from the internet".
Viktar Prakapenya's name was mentioned in media news stories in the spring of 2015 when Belarus' Investigation Committee reportedly started a criminal case against him. He was accused of having earned $650 thousand by doing illegal business in the IT sphere. The businessman was placed into pretrial detention on April 3, 2015. However, the case never made it to court: Viktar Prakapenya was released on recognizance on December 22. All the charges against him were dropped two months later and the criminal case was closed by Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's decree.