In Belarusian Wikipedia, edits to political articles can no longer be hidden. Why did this happen, and what are the risks?

T-shirt with a Wiki print. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

An alarming banner on the main page of Belarusian Wikipedia announced that «the previous hiding/deletion of edit history from risky articles is no longer active» and advised users from Belarus to refrain from editing political articles from their main accounts, suggesting the use of incognito tabs and temporary profiles.

Since 2022, the history of edits on such pages has been systematically hidden to prevent law enforcement from tracking the authors of texts about protests, repressions, or government actions.

Павялічыць

How the banner looked on the Belarusian-language Wikipedia page. The wording has now been corrected to a more balanced one, explaining that the issue does not affect previously hidden articles

However, as Wikipedia editors later clarified on social media, the information in the banner was not entirely accurate: all previously hidden political articles remain under reliable protection.

The problem specifically arose with the hiding of new articles.

This protective mechanism became unavailable in April 2026 due to the specifics of Wikimedia Foundation's internal bureaucracy. According to global policy, any language section must have either at least two active «oversighters» (users with certain exceptional rights, including the right to hide information even from regular administrators), or none at all.

When global administrators (stewards) noted that one of the Belarusian oversighters had not been active for over a year, they automatically revoked his rights. And since the second oversighter remained the only one in the section, his powers were also suspended until a partner was elected.

Solving the problem quickly through a vote proved difficult. To elect a new oversighter, a candidate needs to gather at least 25 support votes with an 80% consensus. Achieving such a quorum is problematic for a small language section, especially since some editors have left the project due to repressions.

The stewards proposed a temporary compromise — to appoint one of the global administrators to the role of the second oversighter. However, the local community reacted with caution, demanding the approval of a specific individual to exclude any possibility of data transfer to Belarusian or Russian authorities.

While the issue with oversighters remains unresolved, the Wiki community is discussing a return to the old method of hiding edits, which does not require the involvement of external participants.

Real Criminal Sentence for Edit History

The importance of hiding edits is proven by the tragic experience of the alternative Wikipedia section in Tarashkevitsa, where similar precautionary measures were never applied to political articles.

Павялічыць

Ilya Baryskevich, associate professor at the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics and an alleged Wikipedia administrator, convicted for «discrediting Belarus.» Photo: Bernard Show

It was the transparency of article edit history that allowed law enforcement to imprison one of the main editors of the Tarashkevitsa section and its administrator under the nickname Kazimier Lachnovič.

Behind this nickname, which maintained an illusory anonymity for over a decade, stood Ilya Baryskevich, an associate professor at the Department of Infocommunication Technologies at BSUIR. He described state symbols, the Belarusian political, and electoral system.

In March 2025, Baryskevich was arrested, accused of creating twenty-five articles allegedly containing «false information.» The lecturer received two years in a penal colony and a large fine for «discrediting Belarus.»

He was released only in mid-March 2026 during a large-scale pardon following the visit of an American delegation to Minsk.

Persecution of Wikipedians

Baryskevich's arrest was only part of a large-scale crackdown on Belarusian Wikipedia administrators in spring 2025, accompanied by publications in state media calling the encyclopedia «a weapon of mass destruction.»

In May 2025, law enforcement detained Olga Sitnik (known by the nickname Homelka) — a housewife, mother of three, and an administrator of the academic spelling section since 2010. She created articles about traditional culture and nature, but still faced criminal prosecution as an administrator of the section. In December 2025, she was sentenced to home detention. However, already in summer, her compromised account was used by GUBADZiK operatives: from the profile of the reputable editor in diaspora chats, they sought photographers for a political emigration rally in Warsaw to obtain photos of protesters' faces.

In the same month, Maksim Lepushenka, the oldest administrator and the only bureaucrat of the academic section, who moderated disputes and wrote about ancient history, was arrested. For his participation in past protests, he also received home detention and was added to the lists of extremists. Even earlier, in December 2024, an active editor under the nickname Stary Jolup was detained.

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