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Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova was taken to preventive detention in Minsk by the Belarusian secret service after the failed forced departure to Ukraine. Her lawyer Lyudmila Kasak was able to visit her there and said investigators had accused Kolesnikova of “asking for power and changing the constitution by force,” according to the independent news website. tut.by reported. She was threatened with physical violence, the lawyer said. Kolesnikova is due to be questioned by investigators this Thursday.
Kolesnikova was abducted in Minsk and was supposed to be taken to Ukraine against her will on Tuesday. However, according to her colleagues, she tore up her passport and threw it out of the car window. Before being kidnapped, Kolesnikova emphasized that she would not leave Belarus. Of the Süddeutsche Zeitung She had recently said: “I am not afraid at the moment. Because I know that everything our team does is within the law. If something happens, it is not me, it is the government.”
Massive pressure on members of the presidium of the opposition coordination council increased on Wednesday, as lawyer Maxim Snak was detained by masked men.
Only one of the main members of the Opposition Coordination Council is still available
Snak, 39, was on the electoral staff of jailed presidential candidate Viktor Babariko when he wrote to his colleagues on the Coordinating Council that a raid had begun. Then he only had time to send the word “mask”. They did not give him a reason for the arrest, said Snak’s attorney, Dmitrij Lajewskij. Opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya called on Belarusian leaders to release Snak immediately. The methods of “so-called state power” are scandalous. “Lukashenko is undoubtedly afraid of negotiations and in this way tries to paralyze the work of the Coordination Council.”
Now, from the seven-member presidium, only the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Svetlana Alexievich, is free in Belarus. She demonstratively met some journalists outside her door and told them that she had been called several times by strangers and that someone had already tried to enter her apartment. In the courtyard of her home, she saw two suspicious minibuses and men in uniform, the writer said. Alexievich called the ruler Alexander Lukashenko for a dialogue. She told reporters: “One person terrorizes an entire town.” Lukashenko said he would not speak to the street.
“It’s not the street, it’s the people,” Alexievich said. Despite ongoing protests, President Lukashenko does not want to give up his power. A few more statements that he made during an interview with Russian media were leaked on Wednesday. Lukashenko also spoke about the Belarusian People’s Assembly, which should meet in December or January. At this event, many dates would be set, including possible presidential elections, if necessary. It was not more specific. It is difficult to say if he is simply trying to buy time and appease some in the population, or if Moscow will urge the autocrats to hand over power in the medium term.
The brutal police operation against critics of the government continues on a daily basis. According to the Viasna Human Rights Center, at least 118 people who had demonstrated in Minsk against the kidnapping and arrest of Maria Kolesnikova were arrested on Tuesday alone. Most were women.
