Since August 9, thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Belarus, a European country smaller than Kansas, have taken to the streets every day to call for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, following national elections held by their parties. at war and foreign governments Fraudulent respect.
Since the beginning of the protests, about 6,700 more people have been arrested. Two other people died in police custody. In an offensive against press freedom, the government recently withdrew the accreditation of 17 news seekers running for foreign media. Three of the main members of the opposition-led Coordination Council were abducted. According to local media, they were kidnapped through strangers in central Minsk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says “reserve” forces are in Lukashenko’s position if “the scenario gets out of hand,” raising considerations about the similarity to Russian movements in 2014, after a popular revolution in Ukraine. Russia illegally annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. Putin also agreed to provide a $1. 5 billion emergency loan to Lukashenko’s administration after an assembly between the two leaders in Sochi.
Belarus is located between Russia and other NATO members. Lukashenko has reigned there since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Bush’s management called him “Europe’s last dictator. “During the pandemic, Lukashenko continually minimized the danger of the disease by advising Belarusians to stop at the sauna and drink vodka to get sick. More than 700 people died in Belarus as a result of COVID-19.
This month, he claimed his sixth term as president.
Lukashenko emerged with about 80% of the vote, according to official polls after the end of the vote on August 9. Her main rival, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, won about 7%. She is the wife of imprisoned blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski and eventually ran in the election in favor of her husband.
“Lukashenko lives in the 1990s, I arrested male applicants and abandoned women because I thought they were a threat. But all the opposition has come together around these women,” said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian journalist and pro-democracy activist who is recently in Minsk.
According to Viacorka, fraudulent elections and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic have taken others to the streets. The scale of the protests that followed others of everything Belarus had seen.
Protests took place in more than 30 cities: the Minsk demonstration attracted more than 200,000 people. According to Viacorka, demonstrations continue after 20 days of protests, from giants to small villages.
The main symbol of the Belarusian uprising is the historic white, red and white flag as opposed to the official green and red flag.
The famous song of the time of the Soviet perestroika “Peremen!”(Changes) has become a protest hymn. The song can be heard at the rallies. It was originally performed by 1980s Russian rock star Viktor Tsoi and his band Kino at a time before the fall of the Soviet Union. At some rallies, protesters also sing popular songs.
Moving scene from Minsk. sing the song Kupalinka: “Kupalinka, Kupalinka It’s dark at night Where’s your daughter, Kupalinka?My daughter is in the garden Mira la rosa And hurts her white hands Shearing the flowers Weed garlands and sheds tears” pic. twitter. com / SOQDvXYgI6
“This is the end of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which began in the 1980s and is now ending,” Viacorka said. “As soon as Belarus becomes democratic, it means the end of Russian-Soviet colonialism. “
“Belarusians are a non-violent people,” declares the country’s national anthem. The protests were generally non-violent, but police and army forces responded with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and crippling grenades. According to BBC News, Belarusian police also fired live ammunition at protesters.
Riot police were searched using ambulances, using them to detain people. Riot police may be seen beating unarmed protesters with their boots and batons with law enforcement officers dressed as civilians.
“From 9 to 11 August, I saw police attack other people and beat them with meat with sticks,” Viacorka said. “They attacked and arrested my friend, Miron Vitushko, 16, to his 16-year-old friend, literally beaten. the point of blackening his skin. “
The first death of a protester was reported on August 10. Officials said Taraikovsky died when an explosive device he intended to throw at police exploded in his hand.
However, videos recorded through Euroradio and an Associated Press reporter show taraikovsky was not carrying an explosive and was shot dead by police. Authorities also showed the deaths of a 25-year-old boy who died in police custody.
❗️❗️❗️The time Alexander Taraikovsky killed through the police. The hero approached the police with his hands up, and was shot for no reason. Belarus pic. twitter. com/qZwUYjEuLd
In Vaukavysk, the framework of the director of the local 29-year-old Kanstancin Shyshmakou museum, who refused to point out the final vote count, was discovered. Another Belarusian protester, Mikita Kraucou, discovered dead in a Minsk forest with evidence of beatings.
An Amnesty International report found that many of the detainees were “naked, beaten and threatened with rape. “
Nikita Telizhenko, journalist for the Russian online newspaper Znak. com, arrested on the night of August 10, recalls in her article: “The maximum violent blows were being imposed around us: beatings, screaming and whining were heard everywhere. It seemed to me that some of the prisoners had their arms, legs and spine damaged because at the slightest movement they screamed in pain. “
One of the points of violence is the influence of state propaganda on the police in Viacorka.
“When you’re in the army, you’re closed to the world, you’re in the barracks, you don’t have the Internet, you just read pro-government sites every day. I think those special forces and insurrectional cops are sitting in the same barracks, and when you’re in a brainwashing environment, you avoid thinking critically, so infantrymen will never join the village side,” said Viacorka, who served in the Belarusian armed forces.
UN experts reported that there were at least 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of others arrested after 9 August. At least six other people remain unknown to their loved ones. More than 70 people have been reported missing.
“What happened after the election is a tragedy,” Viacorka said.
Dressed in white and flowery, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets across the country to call for an end to the brutal repression of protesters through government forces.
Lukashenko said women can’t lead Belarus. ” Our letter is not for women,” she said earlier this year. “Our society has not matured enough to vote for a woman. That’s because through the letter, the president exercises a lot of He also advised opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya to prepare dinner for his children.
“I think she opposes the humiliation and the humiliated maxims of all those years were women,” Viacorka said. “They never made any decisions. “
A crowd of men dressed in paintings followed the women through the streets as state-owned enterprises and public broadcasters began to strike. Hundreds of organizations and companies across the country joined the protests.
Students held large rallies to begin on September 1, coinciding with Knowledge Day, a birthday party in which students celebrate the start of a new school year. Many have been beaten and arrested ever since.
Many other people who claimed to be members of the police and security were filmed throwing away their uniforms in protest. The workers continued to make demonstrations despite threats of prosecution by criminals and the detention of their leaders.
Belarusians have followed Hong Kong’s “Be Water” tactic, a flexible protest strategy that avoids direct confrontation with the police. At the beginning of the protest movement, the demonstrations were basically decentralized. However, Hong Kong is not the only source of inspiration for the protesters. According to Viacorka, she says the women’s marches were encouraged across the United States and that women in white were originally a Cuban idea.
According to Viacorka, occasions in Belarus may be Polish solidarity movements and protest bureaucracy in Hong Kong. Compare the scenario in Belarus with that of other European countries.
“In this scenario with Lukashenko, as in the case of Yanukovych in Ukraine. He is hated by others and supported by Putin. The accidental leader of the others (from Belarus) is similar to that of Armenia. Tsikhanouskaya is like Pachinyan (the prime minister of Armenia. ) “
There’s no single leader to organize the protests. Meetings have taken positions spontaneously and participants, other Belarusians and others living outdoors in the country locate data on what is happening through Telegram channels. Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, has become Belarus’s main data source due to a government-imposed web blackout.
NEXTA, the world’s largest telegram channel (which “someone” in Belarus) is temporarily posting videos and photographs of the protests and serves as the virtual seat of the movement. The number of subscribers almost quadrupled in 3 days, from 300,000 to more than one million. Today, there are more than 2. 1 million. The population of Belarus is approximately 9. 4 million.
Lukashenko tried to undermine the protesters by disrupting the country’s Internet access. On the other hand, Belarusians resorted to offline programs, which allow users without an Internet connection, and VPN tools.
In some other form of protest, others have moved away from the acquisition of goods through state-owned enterprises and delayed the payment of utilities to state-owned enterprises.
So far, 3 countries have implemented sanctions against Belarusian officials. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have imposed bans on Lukashenko and 29 other Belarusian officials. Sanctions target the culprits they accuse of playing a role in voting manipulation and violence against protesters. since the elections, EU foreign ministers have agreed to prepare a list of Belarusian officials who will be subject to sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US and European partners are jointly reviewing selective sanctions that oppose anyone involved in human rights violations in Belarus, yet Viacorka expressed fear that sanctions deserve to have been implemented much earlier.
“In Belarus, everyone constantly followed the United States and waited for what the Americans would say. There are more expectations of Americans than Americans can imagine,” Viacorka said. “American leadership is certainly obligatory at the time. It’s a shame there’s a lack of that leadership now. “
According to Viacorka, there is no turning back for the regime. Most of the Belarusian population opposes Lukashenko, and even his ers have no longer left him after seeing violence against nonviolent protesters.
“There’s been a blow to the regime, there’s a big breakup, but it’s not the collapse of the system,” Viacorka said. “Now there are two characteristics: either this fracture will continue to crack little by little, or there will be a blow to the regime and then everything will collapse. “