Google permanently blocks Belarusian Investigative Committee’s YouTube channel due to sanctions

The official Google account and linked YouTube channel of the Belarusian Investigative Committee has been blocked due to international sanctions imposed on Belarusian officials and organizations.

“The Google account has been disabled in accordance with our export restriction and sanctions policy and cannot be restored,” reads the notice from Google, as quoted by the Belarusian state news agency BelTA. 

Attempts to access the Belarusian Investigative Committee’s YouTube channel prompts a message that says, “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” The agency’s spokeswoman Yulia Goncharova told BelTA that the channel had more than 23,000 subscribers. 

In the aftermath of the contested 2020 presidential election in Belarus, the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, and Canada have imposed sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko and other Belarusian authorities on several occasions. The most recent economic sanctions were announced on August 9, the one-year anniversary of the elections. 

The latest sanctions package also targeted Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev, who London and the EU described as one of the main private investors in Belarus and an associate of Lukashenko.