Inside Lukashenko's repression machine
August 9: Belarus Presidential Election (contested)
Alexander Lukashenko: 80.1%
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: 10.12%
Hanna Kanapatskaya: 1.67%
Andrey Dmitriyeu: 1.2 %
Siarhei Cherachen: 1.14%
Against All: 4.59%
For the past two months, Belarusians of all ages, persuasions, and occupations have been taking to the streets to protest the results of the August presidential election, in which President Alexander Lukashenko claimed 80 percent of the vote. Each week brings a new wave of protests, and a new wave of arrests and detentions. On Monday, a large column of grandmothers carrying flowers marched through Minsk in protest. When authorities attempted to detain the journalists covering their march, the grandmothers started throwing flowers at them. Journalists have become a primary target of the authorities; below, three Belarusian reporters relate their experiences. These accounts have been translated from Russian.
—Linda Kinstler
Andrei Liankevich, photojournalist, Minsk, October 14, 2020
At the protests on Sunday, there was a lot more cruelty, there were a lot more arrests, bright and loud grenades, gas. But the other thing, and this was different from previous weekends, was that the people have stopped being afraid. Of course, they run away from the water canons, but then they return. On Sunday, the main column was dispersed at 4:30, and from then until 8 pm, people were gathering again, and people were getting arrested and dispersed. That is to say that, all that power, strength, and aggression, it no longer works. Over the past two months, human experience has accumulated, such that there is practically no longer any fear. Of course, there is fear, understandably, every healthy person has fear, but on the other hand, there is no longer any panic that one has to run away. So you can calmly protest, and this is completely new. …
People used to be afraid of even the look of militia. They would flee, they would cross the street. But now, people understand what they can lose. They are ready to lose it. They understand there is no way back. Because the road back is death. I think that explains everything.
From the beginning, all layers of society have been represented. From teenagers to seniors, from factory workers to programmers and doctors. From the very beginning, it is a protest of the whole country. Therefore it doesn't change, it is the same. The only thing, there are interesting waves: every time when we felt we're running out of breath there would appear a new protest or a new person who gave a fresh breath into everything. For example, the women's march in the third and fourth week, the students since September, and the seniors' march now, also semi-stoppages and protests by the workers at Salihorsk and AZOT [a chemical plant in Grodno] and so on. The mass walkout of athletes who are now protesting. I would say, there is the same tendency from the beginning, but on the other hand it keeps changing, new impulses are given to the protest.
~~~
Aliaksandr Liubianchuk, photojournalist, Minsk, October 14, 2020
I have worked as a photojournalist in Belarus since 2008. Over all these years, I have repeatedly had to cover the protests that have followed every election campaign in our country. Every time, the independent media along with other parties gets bulldozed under a cascade of repressions from the dictatorial Lukashenko regime. In 2020, the repressions were of an unprecedented scale and cruelty. Today the laws in Belarus simply do not work—independent journalists are detained, tried on trumped-up charges, stripped of their accreditations, and subjected to searches of their homes. In fact, independent journalists today are a prime target for the Lukashenko regime because they record all the crimes committed by the security forces that are under the dictator’s control.
On September 24, I was detained while conducting an interview and illegally sentenced to administrative arrest of twelve days under contrived accusations and received a fine for disobeying the police and working for foreign media without accreditation. Last Sunday, October 11, one of my colleagues, Dmitri Mitskevich, was detained in the center of Minsk while exiting his taxi, and tried on the false charge of “participating in an unauthorized mass event.” Over 18 journalists were detained in Minsk that day. As I write, the home of one of my colleagues, the independent journalist Dmitry Kazakevich, is being searched.
Lukashenko declares his attempts to enter into dialogue with representatives of the protest forces, while at the same time his security organs intensify the repressions—peaceful protestors are being brutally detained, beaten, and illegally arrested. The intensification of repressions on the part of the authorities has engendered unprecedented societal solidarity. Over the past two months, Belarusian society has become more cohesive, with more solidarity. People are helping and supporting one another. One instance of this solidarity was on display today, when queues of buyers lined up at a flower shop after learning of the brutal detention and beating of the shop owner, Maksim Khoroshin.
Belarusians are so tired of the lawlessness that Lukashenko and his supporters have wrought over the past 26 years, that they are prepare to go to the end, and will not leave the streets until all these requirements are met:
1) an end to violence
2) the departure of the dictator and new elections
3) the release of all political prisoners.
~~~
Kseniya Petrovich, Editor-in-Chief of Binoculars (Бинокль), Brest. October 11, 2020. Translated (with permission) from a Facebook post.
About my detention:
It's unclear how today will go, so I'll write about a few moments from last Sunday:
1. I wrote about my detention in our magazine’s channel myself: Yes, I typed out the text ahead of time and kept it ready. As soon as they approached me, I pressed send. Therefore, record the arrests, send them to local channels, because there is no opportunity to report about yourself.
2. I was transferred to the bus. I enter—there are 10 pairs of eyes sticking out of balaclavas. “Turn off your phone! Are you sure you turned it off? Check if her phone is off! Ask the girl if she turned off her phone!"
3. Despite the fact that I was more or less prepared, it was scary and disgusting. Then it was normal and stupid. OMON [Special Purpose Police Department] at a distance of a meter = anxiety. For the first minute, my hands were shaking, tears were rolling, then in ROVD [Department of Internal Affairs], I refused tea, ′′because you are a policeman."
4. For about an hour in the ROVD someone in civilian clothes and without a mask spoke with me, with him were three masked men who asked about Binoculars [my magazine].
5. The place—a dump. Gnawed walls, ripped leather chairs…punctured linoleum….Everything is like in a cheap TV series about cops. Sad and shabby.
6. “Welcome to Lenin’s Gestapo.” “Oh, we already imagine that tomorrow you will write about us,” “We read an article about our colleague, the revelations there, we all laughed. He’s a traitor, of course, one doesn’t do that—you don't betray your colleagues.”
7. Everything is soooooo slow, no one knows anything. They toil, wander, and wait for instructions.
8. After the conversations, we were “waiting for a call with good news.” They tried to engage me in a light conversation. They asked me how I thought, “this would all end,” and “Why do the police have such a bad image? What are we, are animals?” “How do you feel about Tut.By [an independent news site], about BT [the state news channel]?”
9. In the bus, I heard this on the radio: “In the quadrant of Masherova-Sovetskaya-Budennogo, we are looking for and detaining people in black masks (from COVID).”
10. The police are watching anti-opposition Youtuber Alexei Golikov and on his stream, they get a sense of where people are, how many of them there are, who is visible. In the columns [of people marching] there are always tihari [plainclothes officers]—you will know them by their outfits, bags, walking in pairs. Do not speak loudly or in obscenities.
11. If you have been detained, meet, write…call everyone in the world. Many thanks to everyone! Thank you for coming. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT, to appreciate this. I underestimated it.”
Also in this issue: Maryia Rohava explains why Belarus’s protests have lasted so long.