KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – The Belarusian government on Monday condemned a factory strike organizer and arrested an opposition activist as part of a methodical effort to quell weeks of protests against the country’s authoritarian leader following an election that, according to the opposition, has been manipulated.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who ruled the country for another nine and a half million people with an iron hand for 26 years, ignored protesters as Western puppets and rejected European Union mediation following fierce crackdown on protesters in the first few days after the presidential elections on 9 August that provoked outrage abroad , his government avoided widespread violence against protesters and switched to threats and selective imprisonment of activists to stop the protests.
Anatoly Bokun, who heads the Belaruskali strike committee, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, arrested by police on Monday and sentenced to 15 days in prison for organizing an unauthorized demonstration. The plant, which accounts for one-fifth of the world’s potassium production. fertilizers, is the country’s main source of income.
Belaruskali strike committee spokesman Gleb Sandras said the government had managed to end a strike at the plant that began two weeks ago and that all of its potash mines are already operating. -it was KGB, I had stressed the staff to end the strike.
Anatoly Bokun, head of the strike committee in Belaruskali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, addresses staff in Soligorsk, Belarus, on Wednesday, August 19, 2020. Bokun was arrested by police on Monday and faces a 15-day criminal sentence for fees organizing an unauthorized demonstration. The plant, which accounts for one-fifth of the world’s production of potassium fertilizers, is the country’s main source of income (Photo AP).
“KGB agents flooded the factory, tracking the maximum active personnel and using pressure means,” Sandras told The Associated Press. “The government has tough economic instruments. They blackmail staff with mass layoffs. “
Strikes in Belaruskali and many other leading trading plants have presented an unprecedented challenge for Lukashenko, who has kept the economy’s maximum in the hands of the state and relied on blue-collar staff as the main base.
Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Nazarov said on Monday that the measures were a problem, but said all primary commercial plants had resumed operations.
Bokun’s arrest follows arrests of strike leaders at two main commercial plants in Minsk last week. The organizer of a strike in Grodno Azot, a leading manufacturer of nitrogen fertilizers, fled to Poland to escape arrest.
In order to stop the protests, Belarusian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation that the Opposition Coordination Council established to negotiate a power transition, accusing its members of undermining the country’s security.
Last week, Belarusian courts sentenced two councillors to ten days in prison and summoned several others for questioning, adding Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, and another councillor, Lilia Vlasova, arrested on Monday.
“This is the government’s reaction to our nonviolent movements and gives dialogue,” Councillor Maria Kolesnikova told the AP. “This is that the protests will intensify. “
On Monday, Lukashenko ordered the dismissal of Belarusian ambassador to Spain, Pavel Pustavy, who, in a Facebook post, called for an account of the elections and criticized the beating of nonviolent protesters. In the past, Belarus had sent its ambassadors to Slovakia and India for expressing themselves to the protesters.
The Belarusian government also denied access to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the Archbishop of Minsk, and Mohilev, 74, on Monday, to wait for hours at the border before sending him back to Poland. Last week, Kondrusiewicz harshly criticized the Belarusian police.
The US and EU criticized the nine August elections that prolonged Lukashenko’s reign for being neither loose nor fair and suggested the Belarusian government speak to the opposition, appeals rejected by the 66-year-old leader.
On Monday, Baltic EU members (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) imposed sanctions on 30 senior Belarusian officials, adding that EU foreign ministers are preparing their own sanctions against up to 20 senior Belarusian officials suspected of electoral fraud and violence. repression of protesters.
Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz warned that Minsk would retaliate. Last week, Lukashenko threatened to respond by redirecting Belarusian imports through Lithuanian ports and blocking the transit of European goods through Belarus.
In addition to the protests, the opposition organized another major demonstration on Sunday, in which some 100,000 more took to the streets of Minsk amid a strong police presence.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Steffen Seibert praised the courage of the protesters and on Monday suggested Lukashenko “recognize the truth of the country: we want an open discussion between leaders, opposition forces and the whole of Belarusian society for a non-violent solution. “
On Monday, however, Lukashenko unequivocally rejected the opposition’s efforts to repair the country’s past constitution, which seeks broad parliamentary powers.
A fierce crackdown on nonviolent protesters after the vote left some 7,000 inmates, charges wounded by police rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings, and at least 3 protesters killed. Police allowed protests to continue unhindered over the next two weeks, however last week pressure on protesters increased.
Over the weekend, the Belarusian government also took strong action against the media, expelling some foreign hounds and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian hounds. Two hounds from the Moscow-based Associated Press covering protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday. Belarusian AP hounds were informed that their press references had been revoked.
The Belarusian Journalists Association said accreditation rights had also been withdrawn from 17 Belarusians running for other media, adding German television ARD, BBC, Reuters and AFP. Free Europe/Radio Liberty radio, funded across the United States, saw five journalists lose their accreditation.
The UNITED States and the EU strongly condemned the Belarusian government’s media crackdown.
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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania contributed to this report.
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