The Mexican telecommunications holding America Movil, which owns a 51% stake in A1 Telekom Austria Group, has voted to stop doing business in Belarus, the Austrian newspaper Kurier reported, citing sources in the business community.

This decision was opposed by trade unions and representatives of the Austrian group.

As a result, it was decided to continue doing business in Belarus.

"A1 Telekom Austria Group has no plans to leave Belarus," spokesman Michael Höfler told Kurier.

According to the publication, the main reason for maintaining business in Belarus is that the Belarusian A1 is one of the most profitable divisions of the A1 Telekom Austria Group.

On December 10, 2021, the head of the A1 public relations department Mikalai Bredzeleu was detained.

The security forces forced him to say that from July 2020 he allegedly passed on to third parties information related to his professional activities, and also forced him to disclose details of his personal life.

It is unclear what information Bredzeleu allegedly passed on.

He was sentenced to 15 days in jail, but was not released after his term expired.

A1 Telekom Austria Group promptly condemned the detention of Nikolai Bredelev, and said that he did not have access to customer data, but the company still launched an internal investigation.

Lukashenka demanded to take a hard look at what was happening, later the deputy head of his administration Igor Lutsky said that the Operational and Analytical Center (OAC) would check the activities of A1 and take "toughest measures" against the company.