MINSK — Several Belarusian activists who took part in rallies demanding the resignation of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka have been handed sentences amid a continued crackdown following months of protests sparked by a disputed presidential election last August.
The Frunze district court in Minsk on May 6 sentenced 45-year-old Syarhey Sikorski to nine years in prison after finding him guilty of taking part in mass disorder and the possession and distribution of illegal drugs.
Sikorski was among demonstrators in Minsk on August 11 who protested against the official results of an August 9 presidential election that handed victory to Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994. Opposition politicians say the vote was rigged and that their candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhaouskaya, won.
When riot police arrived to disperse one rally, demonstrators began pelting them with stones and other objects. Sikorski was present at the rally but said at the trial that he “did not do anything wrong” and was trying to assist people attacked by the police. It was not immediately clear if he had commented on the drug allegations.
Investigators said that when Sikorski was detained at his home in September, he was under the influence of drugs, which they claim was later confirmed by tests that found mephedrone, a synthetic stimulant drug of the amphetamine class, in his body.
The investigators also said that police found the drug in Sikorski’s apartment and later investigations revealed that he sold the drugs at least once to an acquaintance.
Meanwhile, the Pershamay district court in the Belarusian capital on May 6 sent another protester, Yauhen Rapin, to three years in “open prison” on charges of damaging a security camera on the wall of a detention center in Minsk during an anti-Lukashenka rally in October.
Rapin, the father of three children, pleaded guilty and asked for a mitigated sentence.
The open prison system is known across the former Soviet Union as “khimiya” (chemistry), a name that goes back to the late 1940s when convicts were sent to work at dangerous industries, mainly chemical factories, and allowed to live in special dormitories instead of being incarcerated in penitentiaries.
These days, a “khimiya” sentence means that a convict will stay in a dormitory not far from their permanent address and work either at their workplace as usual or at a state entity defined by the penitentiary service.
Also on May 6, a court in the western city of Brest sentenced local resident Syarhey Zubovich to 18 months of “freedom limitation,” a parole-like sentence for insulting online the then-chief of the Main Directorate for the Fight Against Organized Crime and Corruption, Mikalay Karpyankou, who currently serves as a deputy interior minister.
Zubovich pleaded guilty. The court also ruled that Zubovich’s Samsung mobile phone must be confiscated since it was “a tool used to commit the crime.”
In another western city, Pruzhany, a court on May 6 sentenced local resident Lyudmila Tsaranu to 18 months of “freedom limitation” for “distributing false information about a police officer via the Internet.”
Tsaranu’s posts on social networks targeted police officer Syarhey Urodnich, accusing him of “falsification of protocols and lying at the trials” of anti-Lukashenka activists.
Tsaranu rejected the charge, though she refused to testify at the trial.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets to demand Lukashenka step down and new elections be held. He has refused to hold talks with opposition leaders.
Security officials have arrested thousands in the protests in a crackdown that has become more brutal with each passing month.
Several have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.
In response to the ongoing crackdown, the West has slapped sanctions on top Belarusian officials. Many countries, including the United States, as well as the European Union, have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of the former Soviet republic.
Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called on the United States to apply more sanctions to pressure authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has led a brutal crackdown against prodemocracy protests triggered by last year’s disputed presidential election.
Speaking virtually at a U.S. congressional hearing on May 6, Tsikhanouskaya also urged the United States to engage in international mediation jointly with European partners to help end the crisis in Belarus.
“We call on the U.S. to use its diplomacy to further isolate Lukashenka, to underscore his point of political no return has passed,” said Tsikhanouskaya, who lives in self-imposed exile in Lithuania.
Describing human rights abuses and “relentless political repression” in her country, she asked Congress to increase its support for civil society, independent media, and human right defenders in exile and in Belarus.
The opposition leader claims to have won last August’s presidential election and has sought to unite opposition forces in the face of a brutal regime crackdown on mass protests.
The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on senior figures in Lukashenka’s government over what they say was a fraudulent election and ongoing human rights abuses.
In April, the United States said it would not renew a special license authorizing transactions with nine state-owned Belarusian companies.
Tsikhanouskaya called those sanctions “among the most effective measures,” but she called on Washington to punish other entities and regime figures in her country.
She also asked that the United States keep Belarus high on the international agenda and help organize an international conference.
MINSK — Dzyanis Urbanovich, a Belarusian opposition leader and no stranger to longtime leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s security apparatus and jails, was snatched off the streets of Minsk on April 21 and locked up in a prison that has become synonymous with torture.
Urbanovich, leader of the outlawed Malady Front (Youth Front) movement, was sentenced the next day in a trial that he says lasted all of three minutes and thrown back into a overcrowded two-person cell at the notorious Akrestsina detention center.
Dzyanis Urbanovich
Versed in the harsh conditions at Akrestsina, Urbanovich was nonetheless shocked by a new tactic the guards employed.
“It was hot in there, and they poured in a bucket of bleach,” Urbanovich recently recounted to Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. “The air became thick with the fumes and you couldn’t breathe. Your eyes started to tear up and your throat burned. You became wobbly, swaying here and there…. You needed to rinse your mouth with water and spit it out.”
The recent use of bleach at Akrestsina has been confirmed publicly by at least one other Belarusian jailed there and highlights what observers say are Lukashenka’s increasingly aggressive measures aimed at eliminating the remaining opposition to his rule.
Displaying the opposition’s colors of red and white — be it on banners or even socks — can result in arrest, detention, or a fine.
Lukashenka, a 66-year-old former Soviet collective farm manager who has ruled Belarus since 1994, has pushed changes through in his rubber-stamp parliament that further criminalize criticizing the government or taking part in unsanctioned demonstrations. Other pending changes would make it a crime for reporters to cover unsanctioned protests or stream them online.
Lukashenka has chosen a “deterrence strategy,” unleashing a new wave of repression to prevent any fresh wave of mass protests, one analyst says.
Belarus has been rocked by protests since Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was declared the landslide winner of an August 9 election amid claims the vote was rigged against Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a political novice and arguably the biggest threat to Lukashenka’s decades-long rule. More than 30,000 have been detained and thousands beaten or even tortured in the government’s brutal crackdown.
The Belarusian NGO Vyasna says there are now 369 political prisoners in Belarus. Many opposition leaders are either in prison or have fled Belarus. Hundreds of journalists have been targeted as well, many simply for reporting on the protests.
Hard Authoritarian Or Soft Totalitarian?
To demonize the protest movement, Lukashenka has also recently pushed unfounded claims that the opposition — allegedly backed by Washington — was plotting to murder his family and depose him, prompting one of his top Interior Ministry officers to describe regime opponents as “wild dogs.”
While public discontent remains high, the price of protesting the Lukashenka regime has become increasingly high, with people either out of work, out of the country, or too scared to risk harsher penalties by taking to the streets, explained Kamil Klysinski, a senior fellow at the Warsaw-based OSW Center for Eastern Studies.
“In the past few months, the regime has evolved from what I’d call medium authoritarian to hard authoritarian or even soft totalitarian,” Klysinski told RFE/RL in e-mailed remarks. “His opponents are punished for everything, even for flags or clothes with the illegal white-red-white symbol. It’s an unprecedented situation, and that’s why there is no activity on the streets.”
Protests that once attracted as many as 200,000 people in Minsk in the wake of the disputed election are long a thing of the past. In recent months, flash mobs and other subtler forms of protest have become the norm.
Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya leads the Belarusian opposition from Lithuania.
Tsikhanouskaya, who left for Lithuania after the vote, conceded in February that the pro-democracy movement had “lost the streets.” She had hoped to reignite it on March 25, or Freedom Day, when Belarus marked the anniversary of the founding of the first, albeit short-lived, democratic Belarus republic in 1918.
Ahead of the planned nationwide rallies at that time, Ivan Tertel, the head of the KGB state security agency, claimed to have uncovered plans to “destabilize” Belarus. State-run television showed Interior Ministry troops preparing for “mass unrest,” and a top Interior Ministry official talked of dealing harshly with protesters, whom he had described as “enemies of the state.”
Given the threats and ongoing arrests, the large crowds never materialized. Nevertheless, more than 200 people were arrested that day at modest marches across the country, according to Vyasna.
Lukashenka “chose a deterrence strategy,” unleashing a new wave of repression to nip in the bud any fresh wave of mass protests, explained Alesia Rudnik, a Belarusian analyst based in Sweden.
“Dozens of journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens were arrested,” Rudnik explained in e-mailed comments. “The regime introduced draconian laws on extremism and mass events. Right in this period, state TV started to actively produce more advanced propaganda materials with new narratives and stories. All this indicates Lukashenka is attempting to strengthen his power.”
Changes to the country’s mass-media law — passed by the rubber-stamp parliament in April — would make it illegal for journalists to “discredit” the state, or livestream mass unauthorized gatherings, among other draconian measures. Average Belarusians face stiffer penalties for criticizing the government or taking part in unsanctioned rallies, according to changes to the country’s Criminal Code. The proposed changes have been denounced by rights activists, including Human Rights Watch.
‘They Started Coughing, Retching…’
Urbanovich said conditions at Akrestsina — one of the most notorious detention centers in Belarus — worsened around the time of the planned mass demonstrations coinciding with Freedom Day.
“Up until Freedom Day, things were more or less the same,” he said. “There were mattresses, books, board games. And then on the 27th, it all changed. First, they took out the mattresses, and then gradually by April 1, there was nothing left. And after April 1, they began to deal with us physically.”
Mikalay Kazlou, a member of the Coordination Council of the Belarusian Opposition (KRBA) and leader of the opposition United Civil Party (AHP), was also jailed for 15 days at Akrestsina around the same time, having been snatched off the streets of Minsk on March 22. He also described being subjected to bleach or chlorine.
“They poured in two buckets of highly concentrated chlorine,” Kazlou told Current Time. “So high, that after about half a minute everyone’s eyes began to tear, their noses began to run, they started coughing, retching. Some turned blue because the concentration was too high.”
Officials of the Lukashenka government denied the bleach claims.
Illegal Socks?
Meanwhile, reports appear on a near-daily basis of Belarusians being detained or fined for merely displaying anything with the colors red and white, which are associated with the opposition and the first republic flag.
Natalia Sivtsova-Syadushkina had the red-and-white banners hanging from her Minsk apartment balcony ripped down by Belarusian security officers on March 24. She was charged with “illegal picketing” and fined 2,030 rubles ($794).
The next day, Freedom Day, she was stopped on the street and fined 2,320 rubles ($900) for wearing “socks of the wrong color” — red and white.
“Now I owe 4,350 rubles,” Svitsova-Syadushkina told RFE/RL. “I don’t have that kind of money to pay the fines, even though I work.”
According to Vyasna, more than 300 people were detained in April and at least 98 people were sentenced the same month on what it described as politically motivated charges, notably for the use of red-white symbols.
Coup Plot?
On April 17, Lukashenka made bizarre claims that an assassination attempt was being prepared against him and his two sons, as well as a military coup, to be carried out by a “group of foreign security services, probably the CIA and the FBI” and approved “by the top political leadership” in the United States. Washington quickly denied what it called the “absurd” claims.
The same day, Russian security services reported they had detained two people in Moscow for allegedly planning a military coup in Belarus. Yuras Zyankovich, a Belarusian-born lawyer who also holds U.S. citizenship, and Alyaksandr Fyaduta, who served as Lukashenka’s spokesman in the 1990s, were extradited to Belarus.
The claims came days before Lukashenka traveled to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Lukashenka has leaned on amid growing international isolation for his regime’s crackdown.
A protest against the actions of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Kyiv (file photo)
Moscow probably had a hand in the concocted plot, argued Klysinski, allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin — who was facing growing international criticism at that time over a troop buildup around Ukraine, as well as over the treatment of imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny — to cast himself as a bulwark against the perfidious West.
“Moscow exploits this plot because it needs to fuel anti-Western — mainly anti-American — propaganda and they are doing this quite intensively. At the same time, the Kremlin can show itself in the role of defenders of [the] post-Soviet area, of [the] independence of smaller and weaker republics,” Klysinski said.
[Lukashenka] simply keeps going back to the same familiar bag of tricks, especially when he feels he is getting the upper hand.”
Putin reaffirmed Lukashenka’s claims during an address to parliament on April 21 and accused the West of pretending that “nothing is happening.”
For Lukashenka, accusing foreign forces — even Russia, as before the disputed presidential election — of plotting his downfall is nothing new, explained Kenneth Yalowith, a fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington who served as U.S. ambassador to Belarus in the 1990s.
“When I was there, he accused me on national TV of leading a NATO ambassadors plot against him. He simply keeps going back to the same familiar bag of tricks, especially when he feels he is getting the upper hand,” Yalowitz told RFE/RL in e-mailed comments.
Like the supposedly foreign-inspired unrest that Belarus warned about before the opposition’s Freedom Day marches, the latest coup plot was ostensibly timed for the May 9 celebrations of the end of World War II in Europe, another time when the opposition has been calling on backers to take to the streets again.
After Belarusian state broadcaster ONT on April 25 aired a program on the alleged conspirators, Mikalay Karpyankou, a deputy interior minister in charge of the ministry’s troops, said the regime opponents were “mad dogs.”
According to Karpyankou — no stranger to brutal threats and actions — opponents of the government have “crossed a line” with their “plans and actions,” putting them in league with “international terrorists.”
“This means that the fight against them will be fought as the Israeli forces fight their terrorists. The fight against them will be carried out in the same way as the ‘most humane’ state fought against Osama bin Laden and his followers,” Karyankou said, referring apparently to the United States,in comments reported on April 29.
Lukashenka, for now at least, may have won the battle on the streets, but Rudnik notes he may be running out of time, albeit perhaps slowly.
“Economic crisis, pressure from the democratic world, less support from the former electorate, and a lot more — these are the factors of instability for Lukashenka today,” Rudnik said. “Forecasting whether he finds means to overcome these pressures, economic crises, and lack of trust is difficult. But I would lean toward two or three years more with Lukashenka, quite a short term in a 27-year perspective.”
Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Tony Wesolowsky with reporting by Current Time and RFE/RL’s Belarus Service.
Lawyers have filed a criminal complaint in Germany on behalf of 10 Belarusians alleging that authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka has committed crimes against humanity.
Acting on behalf of “torture victims,” the lawyers said on May 5 that they have submitted a complaint to federal prosecutors in the German city of Karlsruhe against Lukashenka “and other Belarusian security officers.”
The lawyers stressed that neither Lukashenka nor his security officers face legal consequences in Belarus for their excessive use of force and the torture of citizens detained in the country. Thus, they said, they are calling on Germany to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged crimes.
The lawyers referred to so-called universal jurisdiction, which provides for the possibility of criminal prosecution for crimes that break international law even when they are committed in other states.
“In general, the actions of the authorities can only be called brutal,” the lawyers said in a statement.
The 66-year-old Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, was officially declared the victor of the August 9, 2020, presidential election by a landslide, triggering almost daily protests demanding that the longtime strongman step down and new elections be held.
The opposition says the vote was rigged, and the West has refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus.
Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.
“This is the first step towards the inevitable recognition of the regime as a terrorist organization with all the ensuing consequences,” the German media outlet Deutsche Welle quoted a representative of the Belarusian diaspora in Germany as saying.
Belarusian authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka has issued an order to deprive more than 80 former servicemen and law enforcement officers of their ranks accusing them of actions that are “incompatible” with their status, amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent following a disputed election last year.
Citing the presidential office, state news agency BelTa reported that Lukashenka signed the relevant decree on May 4, saying those deprived from their ranks had “discredited” the “honor and dignity of a serviceman and employee.”
“They showed disrespect for state symbols, threw away their IDs, took off their shoulder straps, and refused to perform their official duties,” the report said.
Criminal cases have been initiated against a number of them and are being investigated, including for organizing acts of terrorism, the report added.
The 66-year-old Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, was officially declared the victor of the August 9, 2020 presidential election by a landslide, triggering almost daily protests demanding that the longtime strongman step down and new elections be held.
The opposition says the vote was rigged, and the West has refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus.
Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.
HOMEL, Belarus — Four associates of Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for organizing protests against authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the southeastern city of Homel.
Judge Alyaksey Khlyshchankou of the Chyhunachny district court on May 4 sentenced Tatsyana Kaneuskaya, Dzmitry Ivashkou, and Alyaksandr Shabalin to six years in prison each, and Yury Ulasau to 6 1/2 years in prison.
They were found guilty of organizing mass disorder and planning to seize administrative buildings in Homel. Ulasau was additionally found guilty of publicly insulting police officers.
The four were members of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign team and were arrested just days before an August 9, 2020 presidential election as they urged people to demonstrate for independent candidates to be allowed to be registered for the vote.
They all rejected the charges, calling them politically motivated.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Kaneuskaya’s sons, Alyaksey and Alyaksandr Kaneuski, said given the current crackdown against dissent by Lukashenka, the prison sentences were expected.
“We do not have real courts, what we have are kangaroo courts. They just carry out whatever they are instructed to do by those who are in power,” Alyaksandr Kaneuski said after the sentences were announced.
Dzmitry Ivashkou’s wife Svyatlana said she hopes that the four activists “will not stay behind bars too long.”
“They all greeted the sentences with smiles. They are holding up quite well. Will we appeal? Well, the state has penalized them and now how does one appeal against the state? We will, for sure, write appeals, but that is to make sure no one in the future says that we gave up and admitted guilt,” Svyatlana Ivashkova said, adding her husband and her colleagues had done nothing illegal.
Prior to the election, police detained dozens of activists and politicians as they held rallies to collect the signatures necessary to register independent presidential candidates for the vote.
Tsikhanouskaya became a candidate after her husband, well-known vlogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski, was incarcerated for openly expressing his intention to run for president.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians then took the streets for several months after a presidential poll in which Lukashenka claimed a landslide victory.
The demonstrators, who say the vote was rigged, have demanded Lukashenka step down and new elections be held, but Belarus’s strongman has been defiant.
Security officials have arrested thousands in the protests, in a crackdown that has become more brutal with each passing month.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.
In response to the ongoing crackdown, the West has slapped sanctions on top Belarusian officials. Many countries, including the United States, as well as the European Union, have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of the former Soviet republic.
MINSK — Belarusian lawyer Syarhey Zikratski, who has defended independent journalists during the ongoing police crackdown on dissent following a disputed presidential election last year, has left the country for Lithuania after his license to practice law was withdrawn in late March.
Zikratski announced his decision to leave Belarus in a Facebook post on May 3, saying that while abroad he will “do everything” he can “to change the situation in Belarus.”
In an interview with RFE/RL, Zikratski said that he is already in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, along with his wife and two children. He said his family has been under enormous stress since rallies started after the August 9 presidential election that returned authoritarian Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, to power. The opposition says the vote was rigged.
“My departure is not about permanent residence [abroad.] As soon as it is possible to go back to Belarus, we will immediately do so,” Zikratski said, stressing that after his license was withdrawn, he could not continue doing his job.
Zikratski gained prominence in recent months after he defended several independent journalists, including reporters for the BelaPAN and Belsat news agencies, as well as the program director of the Belarusian Press Club, Ala Sharko. All faced prosecution for their coverage of mass demonstrations in which hundreds of thousands of people have demanded Lukashenka’s resignation.
On March 24, a Justice Ministry commission stripped Zikratski of his license, saying that he lacks the proper qualifications. Zikratski’s supporters say the move was made because of his activities, namely defending prominent independent journalists.
The 66-year-old Lukashenka was officially declared the victor of the presidential election by a landslide. That has brought people onto the streets on an almost daily basis since as they demand that the longtime strongman step down and new elections be held.
Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.
Lukashenka has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.
The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and postelection crackdown.
Protesters displayed banned white-and-red national flags in several areas of the suburbs of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on May 1, including a park, by the roadside, and in residential areas. The protesters were continuing to press their demand for the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Anger spilled onto the streets of Minsk and across Belarus on August 9, 2020, shortly after polls closed and a state-run exit survey pointed to a big victory for Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Protesters marched through the streets of the capital, many facing off against armed riot police who dealt with them brutally.
No election in Belarus under Lukashenka, in power since 1994, had been deemed free or fair by the West, and this one was no different, although the strongman was suddenly more vulnerable than he had been going into past votes. He was under fire for refusing to institute lockdown measures to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which he dismissed as “mass hysteria.”
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
He was also facing a strong challenge from Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a political novice and last-minute fill-in candidate for her jailed husband, Syarhey Tsikhanouski. Her huge campaign rallies had fueled hopes, quickly dashed, that Lukashenka’s decades-long authoritarian rule was nearing an end.
Maryna Zolatava, editor in chief of the country’s most popular news website, the independent outlet Tut.by, was working the editorial desk that day when reports came in of unrest on the streets of Minsk after the polls closed.
“The recollections from August 9 are seared into my mind,” Zolatava told RFE/RL’s Belarus Service in a recent interview, describing the scene “when our reporters in the field began calling in to the editorial office to tell us what was happening in the city.”
“Explosions, gunfire…. I couldn’t believe the things the reporters were telling me,” she said. It was all remarkable, but we didn’t have time to reflect on what was happening.”
The protests, with crowds swelling to as many as 200,000 people in Minsk, have continued ever since, albeit with dwindling numbers. That has been put down to fatigue and the fear instilled by the Lukashenka government’s brutal crackdown. More than 30,000 Belarusians have been detained, and hundreds beaten on the streets and in custody.
Rights groups have documented some 1,000 cases of suspected torture. At least five people have been killed. Tsikhanouskaya was forced to flee to Lithuania after the vote amid threats to her and her family.
For the crackdown and alleged vote rigging, Lukashenka and his inner circle have been hit with sanctions by the United States, the European Union, and others, including Canada.
Lukashenka faces international isolation and is ever more reliant on support from larger, more powerful neighbor Russia, which commentators say is exploiting his weakness to squeeze out more concessions on a union treaty deal that critics say further erode what sovereignty it still possesses.
The practice of independent journalism, long dangerous work in tightly controlled Belarus, has become substantially riskier over the past year. And even journalists at state-run media weren’t safe: Dozens who voiced support for the opposition were thrown out of work and replaced by state TV journalists from Russia.
According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, 481 journalists were detained in 2020, twice as many than the previous six years combined.
Fear And Courage
Belarus slipped five places, to 158th, in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2021 World Press Freedom Index. Three journalists were given hard prison time, including two facing two-year prison sentences.
“The authorities are trying to suppress all independent voices and to strike fear into the hearts of journalists,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “RSF hails the courage of those who continue to report on the crackdown in Belarus and calls on international organizations to take action to prevent such harassment and to secure the release of journalists jailed for doing their job.”
During the early days of postelection protests, journalists were not widely targeted by police, Zolatava said — but that changed quickly, and soon police were harassing even those with vests clearing identifying them as “press.”
“At the time I thought, ‘This can’t be!’ But it is, and it should not be so. The administrative arrests had started. It all seemed impossible — the fact that all this was happening was surreal.”
The risk of her reporters being beaten or snatched off the street by police began to weigh on Zolatava. “It wasn’t like that before. Now you’re under constant stress as you try to maintain a state of normality within your team. And you constantly think about how you can guarantee the safety of your people,” she said. “It has greatly changed the job. It doesn’t impact you physically, it’s more like constant psychological pressure. You really have to be prepared for it.”
Long targeted by the authorities for its hard-hitting reporting, Tut.by has found itself under even greater scrutiny over the past year. The Ministry of Information warned the news site over four articles before withholding its accreditation for three months starting on October 1.
Tut.by only registered as a media outlet in January 2019. Before that, it had operated without media credentials since the site’s founding in 2000.
Behind Bars
Despite the growing pressures, Zolatava said her reporting team remains largely intact. “Have people left due to security issues or political problems? Nothing like that has happened. In August, our work underwent huge changes. Everything that happened before and after that has hugely impacted all of our lives,” she said, adding that her reporters were detained 38 times by police in 2020.
One of them was Katsyaryna Barysevich. She was arrested on November 19 after writing an article about Raman Bandarenka, who died several days earlier following a beating by a group of masked assailants. Barysevich disputed the official claim that Bandarenka was drunk, citing medical findings that no alcohol had been detected in his blood.
The doctor who provided the lab results, Artsyom Sarokin, was arrested, tried, and convicted along with Barysevich, ultimately receiving a suspended two-year prison sentence and fine of 1,450 Belarusian rubles ($560) for disclosing medical information. Barysevich was handed a six-month prison term and fined 2,900 rubles ($1,130) for disclosing medical information and instigating a crime by pressuring a first responder to share information.
Katsyaryna Barysevich is seen inside a defendants’ cage during a court hearing in Minsk in February.
“Katsyaryna is in good spirits. Barysevich is someone deserving of admiration. Katya is the best,” Zolatava said. “It is definitely very distressing that she is in there [prison]. And it’s awful that we can’t change that.”
“We are doing our best. We are writing appeals, trying to draw the attention of the international community to the situation of Katsyaryna,” she said, thanking the Belarusian Association of Journalists and human rights activists for their efforts. “But almost five months have passed since November 19, and Katya is still behind bars. And it’s just awful. How can this be happening?”
Barysevich’s arrest and sentencing served as wake-up calls to editors at Tut.by, Zolatava aid. “After Katya’s arrest, we began to discuss our future more often and consult with lawyers. Although, in principle, her arrest did not affect the editorial policy; self-censorship did not increase. Katya did nothing illegal. She did her job, did it as it should be done,” she said.
On April 20, the Minsk City Court upheld Barysevich’s conviction and sentence. She is now scheduled to be released from prison on May 19.
‘Nightmarish Events’
While Barysevich’s was one the harshest sentences, two other Belarusians suffered an even worse fate. Katsyaryna Andreyeva and Darya Chultsova, reporters for Belsat, a Poland-based satellite TV station, were arrested on November 15 while covering a rally in Minsk to commemorate Bandarenka.
A court in Minsk on February 18 found Andreyeva and Chultsova guilty and sentenced them to two years in prison each, sparking international condemnation, with EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano denouncing it as a “shameful crackdown on media.”
Despite the dangers, more people than ever are turning to Tut.by for credible news coverage, although numbers are slipping as weariness creeps in, Zolatava said.
Visits to the site peaked in August, September, and October. By December, they began to dip and the downward trend continues, although there was a blip around March 25 and 27, when Tsikhanouskaya had called for a huge turnout coinciding with the anniversary of the founding in 1918 of the first free Belarusian republic.
“I think there is a fatigue factor with readers. A year ago, the coronavirus appeared, and the situation then was not completely normal. I think people were looking for something a bit lighter. The whole world is now stressed,” Zolatava said.
Maryna takes part in a march of solidarity of journalists in Minsk in September 2020.
Meanwhile, Lukashenka’s government is pushing ahead with more media restrictions. Changes to the country’s mass media law — passed by the rubber-stamp parliament earlier this month — would make it illegal for journalists to “discredit” the state, or livestream mass unauthorized gatherings, among other draconian measures. According to Human Rights Watch, at least seven reporters face trial.
Despite the bleak prospects and pangs of doubt, Zolatava says she is determined to continue her work at Tut.by. “There have been so many nightmarish events, so much that is unfair, that I’ve wondered whether it’s possible to continue the work. The injustice, the fact that so much is horribly illegal, and yet we are still working,” she said.
“On the other hand, what else can we do?” she continued. “We have to continue working so that all that has happened is not forgotten and remains a chapter of our history. So that people will know everything that happened.”
Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Belarus Service
A court in Belarus has sentenced 14 people to stiff prison terms for taking part in “mass disorder” amid nationwide protests against the disputed results of last year’s election.
A court in the western city of Brest on April 30 sentenced the defendants to between 5 ½ and 6 ½ years in prison in a widely watched case over their participation in rallies in the city of Pinsk. Most of those sentenced in the Pinsk case were accused of throwing objects at police and destroying property.
The rallies in Pinsk were part of mass demonstrations that swept across Belarus in the wake of an August election that gave authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth consecutive term.
Tens of thousands have since been detained, hundreds beaten, several killed, and media quashed in a crackdown that has forced most leading opposition figures into exile.
The Belarusian opposition, the EU, and United States consider the election fraudulent and don’t recognize the results.
MINSK — An associate of jailed Belarusian vlogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski has been sentenced to six years in prison on charges he and his supporters have rejected as politically motivated.
The Lenin district court in the western city of Hrodna late on April 27 found 38-year-old Alyaksandr Aranovich guilty of plotting mass disorder and organizing activities that violate public order.
Judge Alena Pyatrova sentenced Aranovich the same day.
“The case is fabricated. No evidence was presented. I was not allowed to defend myself. Everything is being done to put me behind bars,” Aranovich said in his final statement at the trial.
Aranovich was arrested in late May last year along with Tsikhanouski and several opposition politicians and activists after they campaigned across the country, demanding election officials allow independent candidates, including Tsikhanouski, to officially register to run in an August 9 presidential election.
The trials of Tsikhanouski and the others in the case are pending. Tsikhanouski has been charged with organizing mass disorder, incitement of social hatred, impeding the Central Election Commission’s activities, and organizing activities that disrupt social order.
If convicted, Tsikhanouski may face up to 15 years in prison.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Tsikhanouski was the owner of a popular YouTube channel called “The Country For Life,” which challenges Belarusian authorities, when he announced his willingness to run against authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka early last year.
During the campaign, Tsikhanouski and his associates moved between towns and cities in a camper with a large inscription “The Country For Life” that was driven by Aranovich.
Before his arrest, Tsikhanouski’s candidacy was rejected by election officials.
His wife Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya took over during the campaign and ran as a candidate in the presidential poll, rising to become the main challenger to Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994.
The European Union and the United States have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate president of Belarus after he claimed a landslide victory in the election that has been widely criticized as rigged.
The results have sparked months of mass protests and have been contested by Tsikhanouskaya, whose supporters claim she won the vote, as well as opposition figures across the country.
Lukashenka has overseen a violent crackdown on the protesters which has seen thousands — including media members — detained and scores injured.
Overall, more than 1,800 criminal cases have been launched over the protests against the official results of the presidential election.
Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus immediately after the vote fearing for her family’s security. She currently lives in Lithuania with her children. Most leading opposition figures have been forced from the country, while many of those still in Belarus have been detained by law enforcement.
Amnesty International says Belarusian workers are facing reprisals in their attempts to set up independent trade unions amid pro-democracy protests that followed a presidential election last year that opposition leaders and the West say was rigged.
“Many people chose to express their peaceful opposition to the election results at their workplace, through industrial action. Some faced administrative detention, and some criminal prosecution for exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly,” the London-based human rights group said in a report published on April 28.
Realizing “how little support they had from official trade unions,” protesting workers attempted to set up independent trade unions, but “in response they faced reprisals in the workplace,” according to the report.
Belarus, where workers at state enterprises represent 90 percent of the working population, is a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and a state party to all fundamental ILO conventions.
The UN labor agency has repeatedly drawn attention to violations of the rights to freedom of assembly and association in the country, where there are two main trade union bodies: the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FTUB) and the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU).
The BCDTU unites independent trade unions such as the Belarusian Independent Union (BNP), and has a membership of 10,000.
FTUB, with 4 million members, is the successor to the Soviet Belarusian Republican Council of Trade Unions, and “it retains many of the characteristics of Soviet trade unions such as the participation of managers and government representatives…directly in the decision-making of trade union bodies.”
In this environment, independent trade unions face “enormous challenges” in attempting to register, and their members are “subject to discrimination at the workplace,” Amnesty International said.
In its report, titled Independent Unions In The Line Of Fire, the group cited a failed attempt by workers at the Belarusian Steel Factory in the eastern town Zhlobin, who in August 2020 started to hold strikes to put forward the demands that were being echoed throughout the country — the resignation of authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the chair of the election commission, an end to the beating of peaceful protesters, and accountability for police brutality.
After an August 17 strike during which access to the factory was blocked for three hours, the workers learned that a criminal investigation against them had been launched.
They formed an 11-member founding committee for a BNP branch with Vadzim Laptsik as chair, and in December 2020 they agreed with a local property developer that he would provide the trade union with premises for their legal address.
However, the property developer was later forced to withdraw his offer under pressure from the authorities. Without an address, the union could not register.
After that, members of the organizing committee were subject to retaliatory action.
In January, Laptsik was dismissed from his job without any warning, officially for absenteeism because he had visited the medical department of the factory without a pass.
He also received a notification that he was being investigated for preparing actions that “gravely violate public order,” and left Belarus on January 24.
Four other members of the founding committee have been convicted and three are serving between 2 1/2 and three-year prison sentences on charges of participating or organizing “actions which gravely violate public order.”
Opposition and public outrage over the August 9 disputed presidential election, in which incumbent Lukashenka claimed a landslide victory, has sparked continuous protests, bringing tens of thousands onto the streets demanding new elections be held.
More than 30,000 people have been detained under administrative legislation for taking part in demonstrations and “an increasing number of peaceful protestors are being prosecuted under criminal charges and sentenced to long prison sentences,” according to Amnesty International, which said allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in detention are “widespread.”
The “shocking” clampdown on dissent demonstrates “the deep-rooted and pervasive nature of government repression in Belarus,” the watchdog said.
Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.
MINSK — Belarusian authorities expect to hold a referendum early next year on the constitutional amendments promised by authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid mass protests after a presidential election last year that opposition leaders and the West say was rigged.
The chairwoman of Belarus’s Central Election Commission, Lidziya Yarmoshyna, said in an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency on April 27 that the referendum is likely to be held in January or February 2022 and not by the end of this year as some media reports have said.
She added that, if the referendum were to be held alongside local elections, the most likely date for the poll would be January 16.
Lukashenka’s opponents have expressed doubts about the amendments, calling them a sham exercise to help him to cling to power after the opposition rejected his victory in an August 9 presidential election.
Earlier in February, at a Soviet-style “All-Belarusian People’s Assembly,” Lukashenka, 66, reiterated an idea he started pushing in December that the Belarusian Constitution needed unspecified amendments.
In mid-March, he signed a decree to create of a commission on constitutional amendments which will, by August 1, outline the amendments and present them to Lukashenka.
Opposition and public outrage over what they saw as a rigged vote in the presidential election has sparked continuous protests, bringing tens of thousands onto the streets with demands for Lukashenka to step down and new elections to be held.
Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.
Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.
The European Union, the United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have imposed sanctions on him and several senior Belarusian officials in response to the “falsification” of the vote and the postelection crackdown.
Belarusian authorities have enforced tight security measures in Minsk to prevent an opposition rally marking the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Military and police forces flooded the center of the Belarusian capital on April 26, blocking central avenues to thwart the march. Police arrested about 20 people, according to the Vyasna human rights group.
The actions were part of an ongoing brutal crackdown on protests that began after a disputed reelection in August that gave strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term, a vote that the opposition says was rigged.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Lukashenka’s clampdown has included thousands of detentions. Some of the protesters detained have reported beatings and other rights abuses. Some 350 political prisoners remain behind bars, according to Vyasna.
The clampdown has also included a massive security presence to dissuade protests and restrictions on journalists trying to report about the movement to oust Lukashenka.
Earlier on April 26, several dozen women dressed in black and carrying black umbrellas staged a demonstration on the outskirts of the capital. There were no detentions at that demonstration, although it was not authorized.
The women tied long yellow-and-black ribbons on their wrists and wore face masks with the yellow-and-black symbol for nuclear power. They marched in the Malinauka district, an area nicknamed Chernobyl because people who left areas of Belarus affected by radiation from the accident were given apartments there.
The Belarusian opposition has accused the authorities of concealing the true scope of the Chernobyl disaster, which contaminated large areas in Belarus.
An explosion and fire caused by a reactor meltdown at the Chernobyl power plant located 110 kilometers north of Kyiv on April 26, 1986 sent radiation across much of Europe.
In years past, the opposition in Belarus marked the anniversary with marches, reflecting the damage the country has suffered, including a suspected increase in the rate of cancer.
Lukashenka marked the anniversary this year by taking part in a requiem rally in the town of Bragin, southeast of Minsk.
Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who left Belarus after the election for security reasons, spent April 26 meeting with ambassadors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
“We discussed the effective use of the OSCE mechanisms for new free & fair elections in Belarus and the solidarity of the global community with Belarusians,” Tsikhanouskaya said on Twitter.
In the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, parents in the hard-hit regions of Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia were desperate to get their children out of the irradiated zone, if only for a few weeks.
Ultimately, tens of thousands would spend summer vacations in the West, including Ireland, where a local longtime nuclear disarmament activist was at the vanguard of efforts to help the children of Chernobyl, as they came to be called.
One of those who spent time in Ireland was 14-year-old Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Thirty-five years later she is the leader of the beleaguered Belarusian opposition to Aleksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian long-time ruler she challenged in a presidential election last August.
Tsikhanouskaya, who was forced out of Belarus amid massive protests following the election, in which she and supporters say she beat Lukashenka despite his claim of a landslide victory, now travels across Europe to drum up diplomatic support for the opposition and a new, free and fair election.
But back in 1996 — a decade after the disaster — Tsikhanouskaya was a first-time visitor to the West, taking a trip that both shocked and amazed her.
In an interview with Current Time, Tsikhanouskaya recounted the kindness and hospitality she was shown in Ireland – not to mention the potato chips and ketchup.
Tsikhanouskaya was three years old and lived in the village of Mikashevichy, in the Brest region of western Belarus, when the explosion that destroyed Reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl, to the southeast in Ukraine, spewed windblown radiation over a territory the size of Germany.
A Brief Escape
Hundreds of thousands of people were relocated, and nearly 600,000 so-called ‘liquidators’, many working with no protection, sacrificed their health to contain and seal the fiery reactor, as well as clean the contaminated area.
For children, Chernobyl posed its own unique health risks. Affected areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia – Soviet republics at the time — also witnessed “a significant increase in the incidence of childhood thyroid diseases including thyroid cancer,” according to the World Health Organization. For example, thyroid cancer rates rose “about 100 times” in the Belarusian region of Homel after the accident.
In 1991, Adi Roche, active in the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, would establish the Chernobyl Children International (CCI), to provide medical and other aid to the nuclear disaster’s youngest victims, as well as organize trips abroad for many of them.
Adi Roche at a children’s home in Belarus. (file photo)
The CCI said it has delivered some 107 million euros of aid to impoverished communities and children across Chernobyl-affected regions since 1986. More than 26,500 children have also traveled to Ireland to stay with host families on rest and recuperation holidays, that, according to CCI’s website, continue to this day.
Modelled after the CCI, the Chernobyl Lifeline also organized trips to Ireland for the youth affected by Chernobyl. In 1996, when she was 14, Tsikhanouskaya was included in one such group.
“I don’t know why I qualified for that program. Probably because I had studied well,” Tsikhanouskaya told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.
Now 38, Tsikhanouskaya said that even at that time, 10 years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, few in Belarus – which had gained independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 — fully grasped the scale of what had happened at Chernobyl.
“All the time in Belarus, in my hometown, we were taken for tests. Medical teams would come to examine our thyroid glands. At that time, it wasn’t understood the scale of it. Chernobyl, radiation — we heard it at the time, but that at that age we couldn’t comprehend how bad it was,” Tsikhanouskaya recounted.
Belarusian oppostition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya earlier this year.
“That understanding only came later after you could study the topic and then there was the Internet, and you could find out more. Up till then, all you knew came from rumors, from your parents, who themselves didn’t really know much as well.”
The nuclear disaster, however, was apparently far from the minds of most of the children picked for the program, explained Tsikhanouskaya.
“You know, the kids in the polluted zone were happy, because it was an opportunity to go abroad. That’s how it was seen,” she said.
‘Lots Of Kindness, Lots Of Love’
Her first visit abroad, Tsikhanouskaya was awed by much of what she saw and experienced.
“Of course, I was also struck by the people themselves — open, friendly, smiling, saying ‘thank you,’ ‘you’re welcome.’ It was kind of gloomy at home, at least in my town,” Tskikhanouskaya told Current Time. “And then suddenly you arrive at the home of complete strangers, and they treat you like family, lots of kindness, lots of love. They tried to entertain all the kids as much as possible.”
The food, some of which she tasted for the first time, also fascinated her.
“More than anything else, I was surprised by some of the food that we didn’t have – potato chips, french fries, hamburgers,” she said. “Maybe it was already there in the capital of Belarus, but I had never been there with my parents, so it was all unknown to me. I tried ketchup for the first time there, not our tomato sauce, but real ketchup.”
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Ireland
Tsikhanouskaya stayed with the family of Henry Deane, who had organized the group’s trip. She remained in touch with the family afterwards, and he invited her back a few years later to help organize similar trips for others.
“My job was to prepare documents, arrange flights, assign the kids to families. They would call me if there were any problems. If the child was sad, homesick, they called me, and I talked to the child on the phone. If the child needed to go to a doctor or dentist, I was called to go along to act as a translator,” Tsikhanouskaya, who worked as an English teacher and translator before she was thrust into politics ahead of the August 2020 election, recounted.
During her time in Ireland, Tsikhanouskaya had many opportunities to remain there, but said the pull of home was always too strong.
I was and still am very attached to my parents, to home, to those family ties,” she said, and at the time Ireland “just seemed far away” from home. “Now the borders are a bit more open; you get a Schengen visa and can travel at any time and return home. Back then, there were a lot more complications and at the time I picked my family, my parents, and my homeland.”
Written by RFE/RL Senior Correspondent Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by Current Time Correspondent Alena Shalayeva
Belarusian state media say Alyaksandr Lukashenka has said he will sign a decree that would vest presidential powers in the country’s Security Council if he is unable to function as president.
Many governments already consider Lukashenka’s claim to the presidency illegitimate since a disputed reelection in August 2020 and with a brutal crackdown continuing against opposition protests eight months after the vote.
His critics have dismissed previous pledges by Lukashenka for future constitutional changes and elections as stalling tactics.
As Western sanctions and calls for a new election and Lukashenka’s exit have mounted, the authoritarian five-term president has increasingly looked to Moscow for support.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
No details were disclosed of a meeting between Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recognized Lukashenka’s claim of electoral victory, on April 22 in Moscow.
“Our teams are continuing to work to develop the legislation for the union state,” Putin said during the talks, in reference to a decades-old bilateral agreement that envisages a union with closer political, economic, and security ties.
The Belarusian Security Council is made up of hand-picked Lukashenka backers.
In his April 24 announcement, state news agency Belta reported, Lukashenka said the prime minister would head the Security Council in his absence.
Much of the leadership of the already hounded Belarusian political opposition has been jailed or forced to leave the country.
Lukashenka’s clampdown has included thousands of detentions and a massive security presence to dissuade protests, as well as strictures and expulsions to hinder journalists trying to report on the unprecedented movement to oust Lukashenka from leadership of the post-Soviet republic of more than 9 million people.
Meeting the new U.S. ambassador to Belarus in neighboring Lithuania on April 21, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she wanted to see Belarus “independent, free, and building friendly and mutually beneficial relations with all countries, first and foremost with our neighbors, but with other ones, too.”
Tsikhanouskaya, who ran after her husband was jailed after announcing his own candidacy for president, left Belarus under pressure from the authorities shortly after the August 2020 vote.
The Moscow summit with Putin came in the wake of a purported plot to remove Lukashenka that allegedly involved a blockade of Minsk, power cuts, cyberattacks, and an assassination attempt against Lukashenka. Security forces in Moscow claimed to have arrested several alleged coup plotters in Moscow earlier this month.
The embattled opposition Coordination Council and other pro-democracy forces this week published a memorandum criticizing Lukashenka’s efforts to “deepen integration” with Russia at this juncture.
MINSK — A journalist in Belarus may face criminal charges for an interview his media outlet published with opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, in another sign of the government’s crackdown on press freedom.
Uladzimer Yanukevich, the chief editor of the independent Intex-press newspaper in the western city of Baranavichy, was questioned at a local police department for 4 1/2 hours over the interview, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAZh) said on April 22.
According to the BAZh, during questioning on April 21 Yanukevich was handed two administrative charges for violating the law on the distribution of “banned” information via the media and the Internet.
Yanukevich was also warned that a criminal case may be launched against him on a charge of “calling for actions aimed at violating the national security of the Republic of Belarus.” If found guilty on that charge, Yanukevich may face a lengthy prison term.
Journalist Lyudmila Stsyatsko, who interviewed Tsikhanouskaya, was also ordered to report for police questioning as a witness in the case.
The interview in question was published by Intex-press on April 14.
Yanukevich told the BAZh that he and his colleagues considered the situation they’re facing over the interview with Tsikhanouskaya as “pressure on freedom of speech.”
“We always take into account our readers’ interests and their right to receive information…. We do not understand what words exactly in the interview violated current laws. The police were unable to explain that to me. It looks like it’s not the content, but the fact itself that we interviewed [Tsikhanouskaya] that caused the accusations,” Yanukevich said.
Tsikhanouskaya is currently in Lithuania, where she relocated for security reasons amid unprecedented rallies protesting the results of an August 2020 presidential election that handed victory to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has run the country with an iron fist since 1994.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Lukashenka has overseen a violent crackdown on the protesters that has seen thousands of people — including media members — detained and scores injured.
Overall, more than 1,800 criminal cases have been launched against protesters, who say the vote was rigged and that Tsikhanouskaya was the real winner.
Tsikhanouskaya was charged in absentia with impeding the work of election officials, organizing mass protests, and activities to disrupt social order. She and her supporters reject the charges and say they are politically motivated.
The European Union, Great Britain, the United States, and Canada have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate president of Belarus.
Last week, Belarusian lawmakers approved in the second reading several legislative amendments that severely restrict civil rights and the free flow of information amid the ongoing crackdown on protesters.
The new U.S. ambassador to Belarus, Julie Fisher, has met with exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, just ahead of talks between authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting took place on April 21 in Vilnius, the capital of neighboring Lithuania, where former presidential candidate Tsikhanouskaya moved under pressure from the Belarusian authorities shortly after Lukashenka claimed victory in a widely disputed presidential election in August 2020.
Fisher met with Tsikhanouskaya on the eve of the meeting between Putin and Lukashenka in Moscow, during which the two are expected to discuss further deepening the ties between the countries.
“Today’s action sends a clear signal that the U.S. stands with the Belarusian people,” said Fisher, who in December was appointed the first U.S. envoy to Belarus since 2008, but has yet to present her credentials in Minsk.
“As U.S. ambassador to Belarus, my priority is to embody that support.”
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
However, State Department spokesman Ned Price said later on April 21 that Fisher wouldn’t take her position in the country under current conditions.
“Being able to return an ambassador to Minsk would send a powerful signal. But as long as what we have seen in Belarus continues, the human rights violations, the repression, there can be no business as usual,” Price said.
Fisher said at her meeting with Tsikhanouskaya that “it is important that the international community speak up and speak out about what’s happening, that we pay close attention, and that we call for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Belarus.”
Tsikhanouskaya said Belarus should retain its independence and sovereignty.
“I want to see Belarus independent, free, and building friendly and mutually beneficial relations with all countries, first and foremost with our neighbors, but with other ones, too,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
Since the August election, which Tsikhanouskaya’s supporters say she won, Belarus has seen unprecedented protests and political turmoil, with opposition groups claiming the vote was stolen by Lukashenka, who has run the country with an iron fist since 1994.
Security forces have arrested more than 34,000 people in a crackdown that has led to accusations of beatings and other rights abuses against demonstrators.
The West has refused to accept Lukashenka’s victory, and few countries aside from Russia acknowledge him as president of Belarus.
Most prominent opposition leaders — including Tsikhanouskaya — have left the country.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against individuals and companies tied to Lukashenka’s regime.
Earlier this week, Washington reimposed sanctions on nine state-owned companies, a move expected to deliver a crippling blow to Belarus’s declining economy.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reiterated its call for Belarusian authorities to release Ihar Losik, a popular blogger and RFE/RL consultant, as he marked his 300th day in detention on charges widely considered to have been trumped up.
Losik has been “cruelly separated from his wife, his daughter, and his colleagues for far too long” and “must be freed from detention and allowed to rejoin his family,” RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in a statement on April 21.
He also urged the government to cease its “repressive campaign against independent journalists, including RFE/RL reporters and staff,” and allow them to “continue their work to provide objective information to the people of Belarus.”
Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled the country since 1994, has orchestrated a brutal crackdown since protesters flooded streets across the country following a presidential election they say was rigged in his favor.
Almost 30,000 people have been detained since the vote, hundreds beaten, several killed, and the media targeted by security forces.
Losik, 28, is among more than 300 political prisoners caught up in the crackdown, according to human rights groups.
Losik has been in pretrial detention since June 2020. He was initially charged with allegedly using his popular Telegram channel to “prepare to disrupt public order” ahead of the August 2020 election.
Earlier this month, he tried to slit his wrists and launched a four-day hunger strike after being informed of new, unspecified charges. He had previously launched a six-week hunger strike to protest the original charges.
On March 22, 11 days after he was informed of the new charges, a court extended Losik’s pretrial detention to May 25. He has yet to face a court hearing on any of the alleged offenses police say he committed.
The Belarusian opposition says its candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, won the vote. The West has refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of the former Soviet republic.
The European Union, the United States, and other countries have slapped sanctions on top Belarusian officials in response to the crackdown on protesters and the opposition.
In a letter addressed to Losik on March 26, a bipartisan group of seven U.S. lawmakers condemned his “unjust and illegitimate detainment,” saying they stand “shoulder to shoulder” with him, his family, and all other Belarusians struggling in the country’s prodemocracy movement.
“We join the international community in strongly condemning your unjust and illegitimate detainment by the Belarusian authorities,” the congressmen said in their letter. “We stand ready to hold those complicit in your illegitimate detention to account through targeted sanctions working with our friends and allies in the European Union.”
The U.S. State Department and other members of Congress have previously condemned the wrongful detention of Losik and other political prisoners.
On April 19, the U.S. State Department announced it would not renew a special license authorizing transactions with nine state-owned Belarusian companies, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying that the country’s “regression” on human rights is “exemplified” by independent media experts like Ihar Losik and other Belarusians “unjustly imprisoned by the Lukashenka regime for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
President Vladimir Putin thundered about Russia’s “red lines” in warnings aimed westward, extolled the virtues of parenthood, elaborately hailed the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and called for cash support for citizens struggling with stagnant incomes.
His April 21 state-of-the-nation address came at a precarious moment: Putin now has the right to seek to remain president until 2036, but basement ratings for the ruling party could pose trouble in a September parliamentary vote. More Russian troops are deployed on the border with eastern Ukraine than at any time since 2014, and the plight of imprisoned Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny is one of many factors drawing the opprobrium of the West.
Here are five takeaways from the annual address.
Clouded COVID Claims
Putin opened his 17th state-of-the-nation address with a long section on the global coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s handling of the crisis that erupted in 2020. And although he admitted that it was a trying experience confronting “a new, previously unknown, and extremely dangerous infection,” his description of Russia’s response was uniformly upbeat.
Addressing a high-level audience seated at close quarters, many of the officials without masks, he used praise for the response to paint a picture of a united country working together with few flaws, asserting that “citizens, society, and the state acted responsibly and in unison,” adding, “Everyone worked quickly, efficiently, and conscientiously.”
His account did not include any somber notes. He did not mention medical workers who were unable to collect promised hazard pay or rural residents who were poorly served by a medical system that had been trimmed back in recent years under the government’s “optimization” program.
Putin did not mention the 106,706 Russians who the government’s COVID-19 task force says have died of the illness — or the far larger numbers of deaths indicated by the state statistics committee and other estimates. According to The New York Times, “at least 300,000 more people died last year during the coronavirus pandemic than were reported in Russia’s most widely cited official statistics.” That would be an excess mortality greater than what was reported by the United States and most European countries.
Putin said that the pandemic had been a “sad and disappointing” setback to government efforts to overcome Russia’s demographic crisis. But he stressed that the government’s goal of increasing life expectancy to 78 years by 2030 remained within reach.
As he has when talking about challenges in the past, Putin stressed the politically useful theme of “solidarity.”
“Throughout our history, our people have come out victorious and overcome trials thanks to unity,” he said. “Today, family, friendship, mutual assistance, graciousness, and unity have come to the fore as well.”
Domestic Pandering?
About two-thirds of the way through the speech, Putin made his only specific mention of the upcoming elections to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, which must be held by September 19. And he connected the reference to the thread of “unity” that ran through the entire 80-minute speech.
“I want to thank all the constructive forces in the country for their responsible and patriotic stance in the complicated period of the pandemic,” he said. “This enabled us together — and was very important; not just empty words, but patriotically significant — to ensure the strength and stability of the state and political system of Russia. This is always important, but particularly in the period of preparation for the elections to the State Duma and other organs of government,” he said, adding that Russians should take “a stance that unites us around the common tasks that remain.”
But the lion’s share of his speech was devoted to domestic issues, and he handed out a raft of short-term promises targeting issues that concern average Russians like inflation, poverty, bad roads, and access to health care and schools. It was hard not to take the pledges as a bid to shore up sagging support for the ruling United Russia party, whose popularity took a serious hit when in 2018 it pushed through an unpopular measure to raise retirement ages.
Putin promised a complete program “of measures to support families with children” to be rolled out by July 1. By the same date, he promised new subsidies for children in single-parent homes. By the middle of August he promised a 10,000-ruble ($130) payment to all schoolchildren to help them get ready for school.
He spoke of new schools for “a million children,” new school buses to take them there, new roads for those buses, and other goals that he said would be reached by 2024 — the year he will run for reelection if he chooses to do so. And he endorsed and credited by name a United Russia proposal under which all homes will be connected to natural gas for free, a goal that has existed since the Soviet era.
In short, the speech gave a lot of campaign sound bites for ruling party candidates to use to persuade voters to stick with the devil they know.
What Prisoner? What Protests?
Putin did not directly address the elephant in the room, or outside the room: the plight of his most prominent foe, jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, and the protests Russians nationwide were trying to hold in more than 100 cities to call for his release amid concerns that his health has considerably declined three weeks into a hunger strike.
By making no direct mention of Navalny or the protests, Putin may have been trying to show Russians and the West that he is not afraid of the anti-corruption activist — even as the state considers labeling his organizations “extremist” — and convey the idea Navalny and his backers are not an important part of Russia’s future, not one of the “constructive forces.”
But that didn’t mean the authorities were not paying attention.
As Putin spoke, footage on social media showed protesters being roughly detained in the Far East, and the human rights monitoring group OVD-Info was tracking the rising number and locations of arrested demonstrators nationwide.
Navalny’s team, which has said that protests are the “only thing that Putin responds to,” originally planned to launch spring demonstrations with an eye on ramping up pressure on the Kremlin in the run-up to the Duma elections.
The calendar was moved up to coincide with Putin’s speech after Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said that he “could die any minute” and that demonstrations were now “no longer Navalny’s chance for freedom, but a condition for his life.”
By the end of Putin’s speech, Yarmysh and other members of Navalny’s team were among the names of detained demonstrators rolling in.
If Putin heard rising calls both inside and outside Russia to humanely address Navalny’s situation, he responded only obliquely, saying that “the organizers of any provocations that threaten the fundamental interests of our security will regret what they have done in the way that they have not regretted anything for a long time” — words that appeared to be aimed at Kyiv, Brussels, and Washington but also at Navalny and his supporters.
Keep The West Guessing
For years, foreign policy under Putin has been an exercise in past glory and future greatness. Going back at least to the 2008 war in Georgia, the Kremlin has made upgrading and modernizing the country’s armed forces a priority. And a more muscular foreign policy reflects that: the 2014 blitzkrieg seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea; the 2015 deployment of regular forces to Syria; the deployment of irregular forces to Libya; and the entire ongoing operation in eastern Ukraine.
The buildup of forces along the borders of eastern Ukraine in recent weeks has turned into, according to Western officials, the biggest such Russian deployment since 2014.
NATO, the European Union, and the United States have noticed, and have warned Moscow publicly and privately not to do anything rash. President Joe Biden’s administration has even slapped two sets of sanctions on Russia since he took office in January — and signaled more were teed up and ready to go.
Many Western capitals have also spoken out about Navalny — not just his jailing but also the conclusions that last summer he was targeted with a nerve agent that almost killed him while traveling in Siberia. Navalny blames Putin for his poisoning, and mounting evidence suggests it was carried out by the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Moscow has portrayed its military moves as defensive and painted Kyiv and the West as potential aggressors. In that key, Putin used the more bombastic part of his speech to signal to the United States and NATO that Russia would not be afraid to use its military capabilities to punch back if provoked.
“We want good relations…and we really don’t want to burn bridges,” Putin said. “But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn down or even blow up these bridges, they should know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift, and harsh,” he said.
“I hope that nobody would decide to cross the so-called red line in relations with Russia, and we will define those [red lines] on our own in every individual case,” he said. Analysts suggest the remark was meant to hobble Western responses to Russia’s actions by leaving them guessing about where the red lines lie.
No Bombshells For Now
Given the recent troop buildup, the tough rhetoric, and the warnings from Washington and Brussels, many Russia watchers had suspected there might be a major announcement of some sort coming from Putin in the address.
Formally recognizing the Russian-armed-and-funded separatist administrations in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk? Announcing a long-discussed-but-never-consummated union of Russia with Belarus? Putin running for reelection in 2024? A retort, or response, to Biden’s invitation to hold a one-on-one summit in the coming months?
None of those things happened in the speech.
Putin did take a moment to rehash Russia’s long-standing narrative of the events that rocked Ukraine in 2013-14, when months of streets protests ended in bloodshed and pushed Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych from power. As he has before, Putin inaccurately labeled the events a “state coup.”
He also suggested a parallel with the situation in neighboring Belarus, where last August longtime leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed reelection victory but opponents cried foul and citizens poured into the streets for unprecedented protests. Lukashenka has refused to budge, cracking down hard and embracing the Kremlin tighter as Western criticism mounts.
In his speech, Putin reiterated a claim that Lukashenka made without evidence over the weekend — that there had been a botched coup attempt in Belarus.
“The practice of organizing coups and planning political assassinations of top officials goes over the top and crosses all boundaries,” said Putin, who also provided no evidence. The comments kept speculation about a big announcement involving Russia and Belarus alive ahead of a meeting between Putin and Lukashenka in Moscow on April 22.
The U.S. State Department said on April 19 it would not renew a special license authorizing transactions with nine state-owned Belarusian companies.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statementthat the action is a consequence of a “flagrant disregard for human rights and Belarus’ failure to comply with its obligations under international human rights law.”
The U.S. Treasury Department first issued the license to the nine state-owned companies in 2015. They include fertilizer giant Grodno Azot, oil firm Belneftekhim, and oil refiner Naftan.
The license, which allows U.S. persons to engage in certain transactions with the enterprises, had been renewed annually since 2015 through last year due to notable progress on human rights, particularly the release of all political prisoners during this time, Blinken said.
But Washington decided that an extension this year would go against U.S. values and the Belarus Democracy Act, Blinken said.
He added that the nine companies finance and support strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s government, “facilitating its violent repression of the Belarusian people and repeated rejection of the rule of law.”
The State Department signaled last month that it would not renew the license citing the human rights situation.
The Treasury Department now says that companies using the general license will have to wind down transactions with the Belarusian firms by June 3 or face penalties.
Blinken’s statement noted that there are more than 340 political prisoners currently detained in Belarus.
He said country’s “regression” on human rights “is exemplified by the detention of political hopefuls like Syarhey Tsikhanouski, courageous activist leaders like Maryya Kalesnikava, and independent media experts like Ihar Losik – who are but three among the hundreds of Belarusians unjustly imprisoned by the Lukashenka regime for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Losik, 28, is a popular blogger and RFE/RL consultant who has been in pretrial detention since June 2020 on charges widely considered trumped up.
Blinken also called on Belarusian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release all those unjustly detained or imprisoned.” He also said the United States is committed to working with the international community “to further promote accountability for those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in Belarus.”
Lukashenka claimed to win a sixth term in August elections that the opposition says were rigged and that have not been recognized internationally.
Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka has claimed he was the target of a U.S.-backed assassination plot, and Russian intelligence said that two Belarusians detained in Moscow this week were allegedly linked to the plot.
In his announcement on April 17, Lukashenka did not provide evidence to back up his claim. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to the allegations.
Lukashenka, who was ruled Belarus for nearly three decades, has frequently accused Western countries of trying to topple him after he claimed victory in the August presidential election.
The allegations of the assassination plot also come with tensions soaring in neighboring Ukraine, as Russia masses troops along the eastern Ukraine border, and Kyiv warns of possible military intervention.
Russia is Belarus’s closest ally, and Moscow for years has sought to pull Minsk into a tighter union. But Lukashenka has resisted, fearing both a loss of Belarusian independence but also his authority.
Lukashenka said on state TV on April 17 that he and his children were the targets of the alleged assassination plot. He claimed it had been approved by “the top political leadership” of the United States, though he provided no evidence to back up the claim.
Lukashenka also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had brought up the alleged plot in a recent phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, said the two Belarusians detained in Moscow this past week by Russian agents were allegedly part of that plot.
The two were identified as Yuras Zyankovich, a Belarusian-born lawyer who also holds U.S. citizenship, and Alyaksandr Fyaduta.
Zyankovich is a former regional leader of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front (BNF) party and once sought to be its presidential candidate. He has been living in the United States since 2007 but recently traveled to the Russian capital.
Zyankovich’s wife, Alena Dzenisavets, told RFE/RL on April 13 that Russian security officers “abducted” her husband from the Nordic Rooms Hotel in Moscow on April 11 and brought him to the Belarusian capital.
Fyaduta, who was Lukashenka’s spokesman when the Belarusian strongman was first elected president in 1994, worked as a media consultant in Moscow.
The Belarusian KGB had announced on April 13 that Fyaduta was in custody in Minsk.
The Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, claimed that the detentions had prevented a military coup in Belarus planned for the May 9 Victory Day parade in Minsk, while Russia’s ONT TV reported that a coup was planned for June or July.
In its announcement on April 17, the FSB also claimed that the alleged plotters were advised in the United States and Poland.
Since the August election, Belarus has been gripped by unprecedented protest and political turmoil, with opposition groups saying it was a stolen election.
Belarusian security forces have arrested tens of thousands of people in a crackdown that has led to accusations of beatings and other rights abuses against demonstrators. The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against individuals and companies tied to Lukashenka’s regime.
Most prominent opposition leaders — including presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya — have left the country.
Tsikhanouskaya says she was the rightful winner of the vote.
The West has refused to accept Lukashenka’s victory, and few countries aside from Russia acknowledge him as president of Belarus.
MINSK — Belarusian lawmakers have approved a second reading of several amendments to legislation severely restricting civil rights and the free flow of information amid a crackdown on the country’s pro-democracy movement.
The bills approved by members of the lower house on April 16 define a broad range of activities as “extremist,” providing additional ammunition for authorities to use draconian tactics to target and intimidate protesters and opposition forces challenging the official results of a presidential election last year that handed authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka his sixth consecutive term.
In the wake of the election, thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets in what has become the largest and most-persistent show of opposition to Lukashenka. More than 33,000 people have been arrested in a crackdown that has left much of the opposition leadership in exile or prison. The European Union, the United States, and other nations have refused to recognize the declared election results and slapped sanctions on Lukashenka and other senior Belarusian officials.
The new amendments are likely to spark an outcry for further action.
According to the amendments, any activities by individuals, political parties, or domestic or international organizations defined as undermining independence, sovereignty, the constitutional order, and public safety will be considered as “extremist.”
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
If approved and signed into law, the amendments would ban lawyers from defending people in some criminal and administrative cases. Most of the lawyers who worked with the Belarusian Association of Journalists and have defended RFE/RL reporters in recent months have already been stripped of their licenses.
The proposed changes also say that the following actions will be considered as extremist activities: the distribution of false information; insulting an official; discrediting the state; impeding activities of the Central Election Commission and other state organs; and participating in or organizing unauthorized mass protests.
One passage of the amendments says that any materials promoting unsanctioned public events that can be read, sung, or shown will be considered as “extremist symbols.” That includes portraits of anyone who was legally found to be an extremist.
In other parts, amendments to the law on media will allow authorities to shut down media outlets after they receive warnings if their activities pose a “threat to the country’s national security.”
The amendments also expand the ability of authorities to limit access to online publications if they carry information banned for distribution and refuse to follow requests by officials to address violations.
Lawmakers also approved in a second reading of amendments to the Criminal Code. Among other things, the changes would toughen punishment for disobeying, threatening, and assaulting law enforcement.
Another amendment would prohibit live coverage of unsanctioned protests, making journalists a target for attending such events.
Amendments to other existing laws dealing with extremism would give law enforcement officers the right to use firearms at their own discretion without waiting for a command from supervisors. Police would also be given the right to create lists of individuals they feel are inclined to participate in extremist activities.
Once on such a list, a person would be banned from some activities, including journalism, publishing, and teaching, while their financial activities would be put under surveillance. The amendments allow the central bank to monitor cash withdrawals through foreign-issued debit cards and limit such withdrawals, as well as to freeze the bank accounts of “suspicious individuals.”
Tatsiana Hatsura-Yavorska Watch Docs Film Festival
Tom Grater in Deadline.com of 14 April 2021 reports how an unusual collective of human rights organizations, film festivals and industry have called for the release of Tatsiana (Tanya) Hatsura-Yavorska, the director of the Watch Docs Festival in Belarus, who was arrested on April 5 for her role in organizing an underground photo exhibition celebrating health workers.
The Human Rights Film Network and the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk have put out a joint open letter calling on authorities to release Hatsura-Yavorska, who is regarded as a political prisoner, as well as others who have been incarcerated in the country. The letter has been signed by a broad selection of film festivals and organizations including Sundance and Berlin.
“We urge the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release our colleague Tatsiana Hatsura-Yavorska and other human rights defenders, and to end acts of judicial harassment against them,” the letter reads. You can see it in full here.
Following the event that she jointly organized, which was titled Machine Is Breathing, and I Am Not and was dedicated to the country’s medics and their battle during the pandemic, Hatsura-Yavorska was initially fined 700 Belarusian rubles for “protesting against police” and placed in a detention facility. She has not been released and is now facing trial on charges of ‘raising money for protests’, with her court hearing set to take place 16 April according to those close to her. It is thought she could face several years in prison.
Maciej Nowicki, Director of Poland’s Watch Docs Film Festival, told Deadline that “it is still unclear on what grounds” Hatsura-Yavorska is being prosecuted.
“Numerous reports by the UN, other international organizations and NGOs, unfortunately, have documented various types of violations of law and human rights in Belarus, including the rights of persons deprived of their liberty. This is why we are truly concerned about Tanya,” he continued. “Tanya is an amazing and beautiful person, as well as a very strong one. But now she needs our solidarity.”
A collection of Belarusian organizations and associations also released a statement this weekend, which read: “We consider the persecution of Tatsiana Hatsura-Yavorska by the authorities to be politically motivated, aimed at stopping her public and non-violent activities aimed at protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Elsewhere, Filmmaker Mark Cousins penned an article for The Guardian expressing his support for Hatsura-Yavorska, detailing how he interacted with the festival exec though his work with the Belfast Film Festival. “Nonfiction cinema is our lingua franca. Those who speak it to governments should be defended,” Cousins wrote.
MINSK — Yuras Zyankovich, a Belarusian lawyer who also has U.S. citizenship, has been detained in Moscow and transferred to a detention center in Minsk amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent in Belarus following a disputed presidential election last year.
Zyankovich’s wife, Alena Dzenisavets, told RFE/RL on April 13 that Russian security officers “abducted” her husband from the Nordic Rooms Hotel in Moscow on April 11 and brought him to the Belarusian capital.
“I learned about that only yesterday. I talked to a manager of the hotel. According to him, the hotel’s personnel saw how men in civilian clothes took Yuras away, saying that he was suspected of terrorism. They showed their documents saying that they are from security organs,” Dzenisavets said, adding that Zyankovich is currently in the detention center for the Belarusian Committee of State Security (KGB) in Minsk.
Yuras Zyankovich, who used to be a regional leader of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front (BNF) party and once sought to be its presidential candidate, has been living in the United States since 2007.
He is a graduate of Fordham University’s School of Law in New York and is permanently based in Houston, Texas. Zyankovich frequently visits Belarus and actively takes part in the country’s political life.
On April 12, the day of Zyankovich’s detention in Moscow, a noted Belarusian political analyst, Alyaksandr Fyaduta, went incommunicado in the Russian capital, where he works as a media consultant.
Moscow police said at the time that they had started looking for him after his relatives raised concerns about his whereabouts.
On April 13, the Belarusian KGB said that Fyaduta is in custody in Minsk.
The KGB statement said that Fyaduta and BNF chairman Ryhor Kastusyou were being held on unspecified charges, adding that detailed information on the cases will be provided later.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled the country since 1994, was declared the landslide winner in the August election, which was widely viewed as rigged in his favor.
Thousands of citizens took to the streets for months to protest the results, saying Lukashenka’s challenger, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, actually won the election.
Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus for Lithuania after the election for security reasons, while Lukashenka has directed a brutal postelection crackdown in which almost 30,000 have been detained, hundreds beaten, several killed, and journalists targeted.
Many other senior opposition figures have also left or were forced to leave Belarus, fearing for their safety, while several of those who haven’t left have been detained by security officials.
MINSK — Police in Belarus have reportedly detained the chairman of opposition Belarusian Popular Front (BNF) party, Ryhor Kastusyou, amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent following a disputed presidential election that handed victory to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
According to Kastusyou’s relatives, the politician was detained on unspecified charges in the eastern city of Shklou on April 12 and transported to Minsk.
There has been no official announcement by authorities on Kastusyou’s detainment so far.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Lukashenka, who has ruled the country since 1994, was declared the winner in the August 2020 election, which was widely viewed as rigged in his favor.
Thousands of citizens have since taken to the streets to protest the results, saying Lukashenka’s challenger, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, actually won the election.
Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus for Lithuania after the election for security reasons, while Lukashenka has directed a brutal postelection crackdown in which almost 30,000 have been detained, hundreds beaten, several killed, and journalists targeted in the action.
Many other senior opposition figures have also left, or were forced to leave Belarus, fearing for their safety, while several of those who haven’t left have been detained by security officials.
HOMEL, Belarus — Four associates of Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya have pleaded not guilty to charges of organizing protests against authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka as their trial started on April 12 in the southeastern city of Homel.
Tatsyana Kaneuskaya, Yury Ulasau, Dzmitry Ivashkou, and Alyaksandr Shabalin were members of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign team and arrested just days before an August 9, 2020, presidential election for organizing gatherings and demonstrations demanding independent candidates be registered for the vote.
The four were also charged with the seizure of a building, while Ulasau was additionally charged with publicly insulting an official.
RFE/RL correspondents reported that dozens of people came to support the four activists at the courthouse on April 12, but only one person for each defendant’s family was allowed to enter the building due to what officials called “coronavirus precautions.”
Journalists were also not allowed into the courtroom.
Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country’s legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.
Those relatives who were allowed to enter the building were forced to leave their telephones at a security desk before entering the courtroom.
Kaneuskaya’s son, Alyaksey Kaneuski, who was allowed to be present at the trial, told journalists later in the day that all four defendants pleaded not guilty.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets, almost weekly, since the election when Lukashenka claimed reelection in a vote that Tsikhanouskaya and her supporters called fraudulent.
The demonstrators are demanding that Lukashenka leave and new elections be held, but Belarus’s strongman has been defiant. Security officials have arrested thousands and forced Tsikhanouskaya and other top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.
Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus for Lithuania after the election for security reasons and has been rallying international support for the pro-democracy movement.
More than 30,000 people have been detained in the protests, with hundreds beaten, several killed, and reports from rights groups that there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials.
In response to the ongoing crackdown, the West has slapped sanctions on top officials and refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of the former Soviet republic.
MINSK — Belarusian authorities have stopped the European news network Euronews from broadcasting inside the country amid a campaign to muzzle independent media and journalists as part of the government’s crackdown on dissent following a disputed presidential election that returned strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka to power.
The Information Ministry said in a statement on April 12 that the right given to Euronews, a 24-hour television channel covering world news in 12 language editions, including Russian, to distribute its programs in Belarus had expired.
It added that Russia’s Pobeda (Victory) channel focusing on World War II had commenced broadcasting in Euronews’s place. In recent years, Russia has been promoting the victory of the Soviet Union and allies over Nazi Germany in 1945 in its state propaganda against the West.
A ministry spokeswoman was quoted by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti as saying that Euronews’s license had not been renewed because the channel violated legislation by running advertisements in English, instead of Russian or Belarusian.
Euronews, which is headquartered in the French city of Lyon, did not immediately comment on the move.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians have taken the streets, almost weekly, since August 2020 when Lukashenka claimed reelection in a vote that opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her supporters called fraudulent.
The demonstrators are demanding that Lukashenka leave and new elections be held, but Belarus’s strongman has been defiant. Security officials have arrested thousands and forced Tsikhanouskaya and other top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.
Meanwhile, Barys Haretski, deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, says the government has embarked on the largest crackdown on journalists and rights activists Europe has ever seen.
“Since last summer, the authorities have systematically created, let us say, ‘a Great Wall of China’ around Belarusian society. They have repressed journalists and shut down media outlets,” Haretski said.
Lukashenka, who has run Belarus since 1994, and other top officials have been slapped with sanctions by the West, which refuses to recognize him as the legitimate leader of the country.
Minsk-based media expert Paulyuk Bykouski said the move to ban Euronews cuts off a main point of access to fair and unfiltered news for Belarusians, who “do not have access to such information projects as CNN, Fox News, and any other channels that could be a possible alternative to what is being broadcast by Belarusian state media and Russian television channels.”
