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There is no trace of one of the most important leaders of the opposition in Belarus, Maria Kolesnikova. Her colleagues have no contact with her, said the press service of the coordination council of the democracy movement in Minsk. Furthermore, her employee Ivan Kravzov and her spokesman Anton Rodnenkow are no longer available.
The internet portal tut.by reported, according to a witness, that strangers put Kolesnikova in a minibus and abducted him on Monday morning. This has not yet been confirmed by the Coordinating Council.
“We can only guess, but it is obvious that the authorities are doing everything they can to avoid the council’s work as much as possible,” Pavel Latuschko, a former culture minister and currently a high-ranking council member, told the Russian news agency. Interfax.
The 38-year-old is one of the most important members of the opposition opposing the controversial head of state Alexander Lukashenko. Some members of the committee had already been detained, abandoned or forced to leave, including presidential candidate Svetlana Tichanovskaya. He fled to the EU country Lithuania after the elections.
Kolesnikova works for former bank director Viktor Babariko, who wanted to run for president. She is also on the Presidium of the Coordination Council, which seeks a peaceful change of power. Kolesnikowa had lived in Stuttgart for many years and managed cultural projects from there. She marched with the large rally on Sunday in Minsk.
The background to the protests is the presidential elections of more than four weeks ago. Lukashenko was then declared the winner with 80.1 percent of the votes. However, the opposition considers Tichanovskaya to be the real winner. The vote is criticized internationally for being grossly falsified.
According to internal sources, the EU is preparing sanctions against 31 high-ranking government officials and authorities for the elections. Among them is Interior Minister Yuri Karaew, Reuters news agency reports, citing three EU diplomats. “Initially we agreed on 14 names,” said one of them. “But many states felt this was not enough. We have now reached consensus on 17 others.” These are the ones responsible for the election, the violence and the actions of the government against the protesters. A formal agreement should be reached at the EU foreign ministers meeting on September 21.
