Last week, Yandex evacuated a part of its Belarusian employees to Russia following a police raid on its Minsk office amid the unrest in the city.
According to the Russian search giant, the Belarusian police were seeking to seize user data. Thus, on August 13, unidentified armed people came to Yandex’s office, presenting themselves as officers from the Department of fight against organized crime of the Ministry of Interior. A similar police raid took place in Uber’s offices.
According to The Bell, the operatives wanted to get access to data on users of the taxi services of the two companies.
While a part of the company’s 300 local employees were moved to Russia, others who could not leave Belarus were relocated to country homes away from the capital.
Following the raids, Rakuten, the owner of the Viber service, decided to close its office in Minsk. Rakuten’s CEO, Djamel Agaoua, explained to Forbes that due to the sudden raids on “neighbors,” the company “decided to evacuate the office for safety.”
If the situation does not improve, Viber will no longer invest in Belarus, where it has strong R&D activities, Agaoua explained: “This can happen because we cannot invest in a country where people live in fear.”
Meanwhile Mikita Mikado, the founder of internationally successful Belarusian startup PandaDoc, called on the Belarusian policemen to “switch to the good side” and promised to support them materially if necessary.
The day before the police searches at Yandex and Uber, Belarusian IT companies signed an open letter demanding that the authorities stop the violence, release the detainees and hold new presidential elections.
“We are tech businessmen, not political experts. A technology business cannot function in the current situation. Startups cannot emerge in an atmosphere of fear and violence. Startups are born in an atmosphere of freedom and openness,” the letter stated.
