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meIn Minsk, Maria Kolesnikova, a main member of the Coordination Council of Opponents of the dictator Alexandr Lukashenka, and other members of the body are missing. They are believed to have been detained by security forces in plain clothes. A witness told Belarusian news portal Tut.by that he saw Kolesnikova in the center of the capital on Monday morning and turned around when he heard a phone fall onto the asphalt. “People in plain clothes” had dragged Kolesnikova into a minibus with the inscription “Svyaz”, “connection”. One of them took the phone and jumped into the vehicle, which then drove away.
Coordinating Council press spokesperson Anton Rodnenkow confirmed to Tut.by that Kolesnikova had traveled alone; a bit later, however, Rodnenkow no longer answered the phone. The same happened with the secretary of the Coordination Council, Ivan Kravtsov. Pavel Latuschko, a member of the coordinating council, confirmed to the Russian Interfax news agency that Kolesnikova had been “allegedly arrested”. Latushko left Belarus under pressure from the regime last week.
Minsk police told the Russian Interfax news agency that Kolesnikova had not been arrested. The investigation committee and the state control committee responsible for economic crimes also stated that they had not detained Kolesnikova. However, other authorities such as the KGB secret service can also be considered, especially since the hunters appeared in plain clothes.
Kolesnikova, a colleague of presidential candidate Viktor Babariko, who was prevented by the regime and incarcerated since June, is the last of the trio of women around candidate Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who is still in Belarus. Tichanovskaya was brought to Lithuania by the regime shortly after the presidential elections, which he claims to have won. Veronika Zepkalo, the wife of another impeded candidate, had followed her husband into exile, who was threatened with prosecution.
The Coordination Council strives for a peaceful transfer of power and new elections. He wants a dialogue with the regime, which Lukashenka rejects. Criminal proceedings are under way against the committee, in the course of which several members, such as Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexijewitsch and Maria Kolensikowa, have been cited as “witnesses”. Latuschko said the regime was doing “everything possible to prevent the council from working.” Tichanovskaya’s mistress, Olga Kowalkowa, who was sentenced to two arrest sentences, was only taken to the Polish border at the weekend, from where she traveled to Warsaw.
Broken windows
Kolesnikova was present at the large demonstrations last Sunday and had repeatedly urged protesters not to get too close to the security forces and not to be provoked, so as not to give the regime any reason for further violence. The 38-year-old musician also marched last Sunday, when an estimated 100,000 people in Minsk flocked to Lukashenka’s residence and demanded the dictator’s withdrawal.
Following the peaceful mass demonstration, plainclothes thugs chased the protesters and smashed a cafe window in the process; later it was found that they were plainclothes policemen. According to official sources, 633 people were arrested during the protests in many cities of Belarus and 363 remained awaiting trial.
Kolesnikova, who lived in Stuttgart for twelve years, recently said in an interview with the FAZ, when asked what would happen if she was arrested, that “the threat is neither greater nor less than for any Belarusian who is active now. Asked what happens to the Coordination Council, of which it is the most important face in Belarus, Kolesnikova said: “It would be the same as in the last three months: here people have been arrested all the time.” The rest still works. We just live in this situation, in a police state. Dozens of my friends and colleagues are currently in jail. You can’t imagine that in Europe, where people are imprisoned for real crimes, here just because they go out on the streets. “
