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Because she broke her passport, Kolesnikova prevented her forced departure.
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Opposition politician Kolesnikova in Ukraine
Since Monday morning there has been no sign of life from one of the main leaders of the protests against the head of state Alexander Lukashenko. Now it is said that it appeared in Ukraine. The circumstances are unclear.
Opposition activist Maria Kolesnikowa was detained by Belarusian border guards at a crossing into Ukraine, because she refused to leave the country like her fellow campaigners. She broke her passport to stay in Belarus.
SBelarusian opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova has been missing since Monday. Kolesnikova has now been detained on the border with Ukraine because she refused to leave the country. A spokesman for the Belarusian Border Guard Committee confirmed the custody. The Interfax Ukraine agency, citing the Kiev government, reported that Kolesnikova had broken her passport to avoid deportation.
Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook that Kolesnikova had prevented “forced deportation from her homeland.” “Maria Kolesnikova could not be deported from Belarus because this brave woman made sure they could not cross the border.” Remain on the territory of Belarus. “Alexander Lukashenko is personally responsible for his life and health,” the minister stressed.
At first, the border guards announced that Kolesnikova had left the country. Belarusian state television reported that she tried to cross the border in a car early Tuesday morning and was arrested. Her employee Ivan Kravtsov and her spokesman Anton Rodnenkow were able to cross the border, a representative of the border guards said. Ukrainian authorities confirmed that the two men had crossed the border.
The opposition said Tuesday morning that it still had no information on Kolesnikova’s whereabouts. This was announced by the coordinating council of the democratic movement to which it belongs. It is also unknown where her colleague Ivan Kravzov and her spokesman Anton Rodnenkow are. “We can only confirm the fact that Maria Kolesnikova did not want to leave Belarus voluntarily.”
The Belarusian authorities have already used the tactic with other members of the opposition. Olga Kowalkowa went to Poland on Saturday. According to her own statements, the authorities threatened her with a longer sentence if she refused to leave the country. Svetlana Tichanowskaja fled to Lithuania. The authorities had also pressured them.
Kolesnikova is one of the main leaders of the protests against the head of state Alexander Lukashenko. The coordinating council of the democratic movement, of which she is a member, assumed that Kolesnikova had been abducted by unknown persons in the center of the capital, Minsk. The Interior Ministry said it had not arrested Kolesnikova. The council called for her immediate release.
Claudia Roth wants to sponsor prisoners
In the case of a longer detention, the Vice President of the Bundestag, Claudia Roth (Greens), wants to sponsor a prisoner. “She is the face of the democratic movement in Belarus, I extend my great solidarity, she must be strengthened and protected,” Roth said.
The protests against Lukashenko are carried out in Belarus for more than four weeks. The background to this is the grossly falsified presidential election, in which he was declared the winner with 80.1 percent of the vote. However, the opposition considers Tichanovskaya to be the real winner.
Tichanovskaya requested international support for the opposition on Tuesday. “We need international pressure on this regime and the one in which power is concentrated,” he told a video hearing at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday. “In view of the human rights violations” in her country, sanctions against individual representatives are necessary.
