Ilya, who worked for the Belarusian opposition, fled to Lithuania: he was told to put on skis

Ilja, 28, is an information technology specialist who assisted Valero Capkala’s headquarters in the presidential elections.

15 minutes you know the name and place of work of the interlocutor, but we do not disclose this information at your request for reasons of personal security.

He worked for one of the largest IT companies in Belarus and also taught programming.

After the elections, Ilya participated in protests in the country. However, hated by the violence of the officials on his last night in Belarus, he no longer took to the streets.

Sitting on the Minsk-Vilnius bus, Ilja left for Lithuania on Wednesday.

As the bus approached the Lithuanian border, he was the last of all passengers to reach the border guards, present identity documents and apply for asylum.

“I felt more or less calm, but I looked at Belarus with fear. For some reason, I was afraid that at any moment a black minivan with numbers starting at nine would arrive. ” – interview 15 minutes Ilya said on the phone.

As far as he knows, the number of cars belonging to power structures starts at 9 in Belarus.

Belarus will have to wait up to half a year for the authorities to decide on asylum.

The Omonininkai just cut the protesters’ hair on the street and didn’t even do it with caution

The man may be in Lithuania all this time, but for now, due to the threat of the coronavirus, he has to spend 14 days in the approximately 30 square meters of premises at the Kena border firewall.

“One of them is enough for me,” he laughed.

However, the reality that the Belarusian has had to face is far from being a laugh.

Caught the deception of the regime

While working at the V. Capkala headquarters, Ilja was looking for solutions that would allow her to conduct independent sociological studies before and on Election Day, as well as solve other IT problems. This was motivated by the distrust of opposition candidates in the country’s electoral commission.

The Belarusian continued this work with the team later, although V. Capkala himself was unable to participate in the elections, as the Belarusian Electoral Commission argued that it did not collect a sufficient number of signatures from supporters.

Ilya suspects that he himself may have appeared at the hearing of Belarusian officials on Sunday, the day of the elections.

On that day, he noticed that the data of people using the electronic voting system “Golos” (Lithuanian Voice) created by the opposition was not sent to the default Amazon server, but to Russian.

He suspected that it was organized by the Belarusian government, which restricted the internet across the country and created a replacement for the Gola system.

According to the interlocutor, this essentially allowed the government to obtain part of the data of the people who used the Gola system, such as IP addresses, phone numbers and ballots, because the system had to upload a photo of the document to count the vote.

Ilya claims that upon realizing this, he contacted Gola’s technical manager and offered the help of the manager of said Russian servers.

“I presented them with all the technical information that I had gathered and the legal consequences of such actions. It was basically an illegal data collection for fraudulent purposes, “he said.

Ilya submitted the claim from his personal email, adding personal details to make it look more compelling.

According to the Belarusian, several other people have taken similar actions.

After about three days, Ilya will learn that his complaint may have fallen into the hands of the Belarusian police.

Crying out of cruelty

During the first two nights after the elections, Ilya observed or participated in protests in various parts of Minsk.

“If the first day we were still bombarded, and even that caused a lot of physical and psychological trauma, then the bullets began,” said the Belarusian. “Officials say they use rubber bullets, but everything shows that they are not some kind of rubber bulbs, but serious, hard and penetrating plastic.”

One night, while driving home, Ilya noticed a lock of curly hair lying on the ground and, in places, bloody.

“Apparently the ‘owners’ were simply cutting the hair of their protesters on the street and not even doing it carefully, but simply making fun of people,” said the Belarusian.

Hundreds of people were also informed about the horrific beatings and torture who were released at the end of the week after arrests in militia units and detention centers.

People told reporters that cigarettes were extinguished in detention centers, they were tortured with electric shocks and beaten with sticks.

In the streets, the militia also used combat ammunition at least once against protesters. Hundreds of people were injured in clashes with officials. According to official figures, two people died, one in Minsk and the other in Gomel, in the south of the country.

During the protests from Sunday to Monday nights and Monday to Tuesday, Ilya, who was in protest, said that he had not taken to the streets on his last night in Belarus.

“He was no longer in psychological shape. I was sitting at home, my hands were shaking and tears were spilling, ”said the interlocutor.

In addition, on Wednesday night he received a call that led him to make the decision to leave Belarus.

He was an acquaintance of Ilya from law enforcement, with whom the man claims to have discussed his decision to contact the administrators of the Russian servers to which the data of Gola users traveled without hiding personal data.

“He didn’t even advise me, but he hinted more that I should lubricate the skis,” the man said.

The next day, after buying a bus ticket for 25 rubles, Ilya left Minsk.

He arrived in Lithuania on Wednesday, at the end of the working day.

What to do for S.Cichanouskajai?

The protesters do not agree with the officially announced election results, which put the current president, Alexander Lukashenko, at 80 percent. the votes secured the sixth term.

Svetlana Cichanouskaya, an opposition candidate who went to the electoral commission on Monday to hold a protest about the vote count, spent several hours there and was unavailable, and by Tuesday morning it was clear that the escorted Belarusian official had arrived at Lithuania.

Then the public saw two videos, one posted by the candidate herself and the other by Belarusian officials.

Judging from her emotions at the time, I can tell that we wouldn’t know better what he had actually threatened her with.

In these records, Ms. Cichanouskaya emphasized that the safety of children is the most important thing to her, urged people to abide by the law, and stated that she did not seek blood or violence.

Some have interpreted those statements as a capitulation following threats from Belarusian officials.

“For us Belarusians, his appeal, which he clearly read to the Belarusian Electoral Commission and which was clearly written to him, clearly shows that the man was under pressure,” Ilya said.

“Judging from her emotions at the time, I can tell that we wouldn’t know better what he had really threatened her with.”

According to the Belarussian, even if Ms Chichanouskaya decided not to participate in political activities, her team could begin to form a transitional government, seek the release of political prisoners, hold a referendum to change the Belarusian constitution, and transparent and fair elections.

“The biggest minds in Belarus are now rallying around him, … and the president is just a visionary, leading people in a certain direction,” said the man seeking asylum in Lithuania.

“However, I do not know how Lukashenko could remain in such a scenario in the country, because if he loses legal immunity, he will receive many criminal cases not only in Belarus, but also in the Hague court,” he said.

“Yugoslavia, compared to that, will only look like flowers to us,” Ilya said.

There may be more asylum seekers

In addition to Ilya, since the beginning of the unrest in Belarus, two other Lithuanian citizens have gone to Lithuania and applied for asylum. 15 minutes approved by Evelina Gudzinskaitė, Director of the Migration Department.

Until this week, in 2020, no Belarussian applied for asylum in Lithuania.

Vytis Jurkonis, representative of the non-governmental organization Freedom House in Lithuania 15 minutes He claimed there would be even more asylum seekers if it weren’t for the movement disorders due to the coronavirus.

In addition, the relaxation of officials’ treatment of protesters in recent days has forced some of them to consider their plans for longer, the political scientist said.

“However, there is no need to calm down, because the situation could get worse any day.” Lithuania must be very clear about how this whole process should be, because potentially we are talking about a large number of people, ”said V. Jurkonis.

“Belarusians who are familiar with the asylum procedure understand that the discussion takes time, that it is not possible to leave Lithuania during this period. Furthermore, not all Belarusians can now show a clearly documented threat,” the non-governmental organization said.

“However, the real situation shows that after the crackdown, practically all Belarusian citizens can now attack,” he added.