The Supreme Court of Belarus has declared the three Telegram channels run by the Nexta news outlet a "terrorist organization," the Prosecutor-General's Office announced on April 8.
The Nexta news outlet, run from Poland, has three channels on Telegram, including Nexta Live, which has 1.4 million subscribers in a country of 9.5 million.
"The Supreme Court of Belarus, at the request of Prosecutor General Andrei Shved, recognized NEXTA as a terrorist organization," Nexta wrote on Twitter. "Terrorists win."
The ruling means any cooperation with the three Telegram channels -- Nexta, Nexta Live, and Luxta -- will entail criminal liability.
In October, the Belarusian Interior Ministry classified all three as "extremist," prohibiting their activity in the country.
Dozens of news websites have been blocked in Belarus and independent media shut down as part of a sweeping crackdown on information in the wake of unprecedented protests triggered by the August 2020 presidential election that gave authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term.
The opposition and the West say the vote was rigged to keep him in power.
Lukashenka's government has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement, arresting thousands of people and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country. The Vyasna human rights center says it considers 1,102 people to be political prisoners.