Belarusian KGB officers have detained 50 people on charges of insulting a government official or inciting social hatred, following a shooting incident in which an IT worker and a KGB officer died, the Viasna-96 human rights group said on Thursday.
"Apparently, the arrests are connected with comments on social media posts about the death of Andrei Zeltser and a KGB officer," the rights group said. The interior ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
Belarusian authorities said KGB officers shot dead a 31-year-old man on Tuesday after he resisted law enforcement officers. They did not confirm his identity or media reports that the man may have been a U.S. citizen.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Jon Boyle)
