A group of hackers known by the opposition in Belarus as “Cyber Partisans” has released the personal information of 1,003 police officers in Belarus to avenge the police arrest of demonstrators who are protesting the election victory of Alexander Lukashenko.
The breached data of the police officers was released publicly on the Telegram messaging app by NEXTA Live, the news channel of the opposition party in the country. The data publicized the hometowns, official ranks, police stations of work, as well as the birth dates of the police officers.
The opposition went further with seven members of the special anti-terror unit of the Ministry of Interior by publishing their home addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information of the officers.
The opposition threatened on NEXTA Live that they will continue to publish the hacked data of thousands of other police officers in Belarus if they continue to arrest and detain mass protesters. According to them, “no one will remain anonymous even under a balaclava” if masked police officers continue with their spate of arrests.
The government responded by saying that law enforcement will fish out the hackers and punish them accordingly. According to the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Interior, Olga Chemodanova, law enforcement has the security and intelligence apparatus to identify and prosecute the hackers in the shortest possible time.
Andrey Parshin, director of the Main Directorate of Internal Security at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, stated last week that since the election took place, up to 300 police officers have had their personal details laid bare to the general public by the hackers. “Over 250 employees and their families were subjected to destructive pressure,” he said.
Since the August 9 presidential election, won decisively by Lukashenko, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand his resignation. Many of the protesters are women, and police officers with faces covered in masks or balaclavas have clamped down on the demonstrators, throwing hundreds of them into jail. With about 400 women detained in police custody, many detainees accuse the police of brutality and torture.
Many videos show masked policemen hauling demonstrators into vehicles, while human rights agencies have condemned the manner in which the government is dealing with protesters who are still engaged in their sixth week of massive protests.
Source: nbcnews.com
