ATTACK ON CHARTER-97 WEB-SITE

22.01.2004.

The web-site was attacked after it had published a journalist research by Anton Melnichuk "Belarusian Trace of Child Porn Sellers".
The Charter-97 press center told RFE/RL reporter, Anton Melnichuk is a pseudonym, the journalist who has published the article on their web-site, is not going to uncover his real name. This is done for security purposes, because the article describes criminal methods of Belarusian child porn sellers, some of who have already been arrested by special services of the USA, France, and Spain. Many Belarusian and foreign mass media, including RFE/RL reported the arrests, and wrote about Minsk company Regpey, which distributed child porn materials. Last Monday Anton Melnichuk published new names and facts about the organizers of this criminal business in Belarus, about their links to employees of the law-enforcing bodies, about schemes of money laundry in Latvia and Russia, and other details of this black business.
However, since the morning of January 20 the access to the web-site has been blocked. Charter-97 press secretary Aleh Bebenin has no doubts, their site was subject to a hacker attack, organized by Internet sellers of child porn.