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Opposition politician Kolesnikova is detained in his home country after being driven to the border with Ukraine on Tuesday night. She is said to have been taken there with two colleagues, Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov.
All three are all members of the opposition coordinating council, and Kolesnikova is now one of the last protest leaders still in Belarus.
On Tuesday night, Rodnenkov and Kravtsov met with the press in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. There they described a series of dramatic events in the last 24 hours.
Threats
Belarusian border officials say Kolesnikova tried to flee the country illegally, but her two colleagues say she opposed the deportation.
They say they were arrested in Minsk on their way to Kolesnikova’s apartment on Monday after reports that she had been abducted.
Tied up and with bags over their heads, the two men were interrogated, threatened with prosecution, and finally offered the opportunity to leave Belarus with Kolesnikova, Kravtsov says.
Outside the window
Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov, who are press chiefs and administrative secretaries at the opposition coordination council respectively, met with the press in Kiev on Tuesday. They were taken to the Ukrainian border with Maria Kolesnikova. Photo: Efrem Lukatsky / AP
Finally, the three were driven in a car to the buffer zone on the border with Ukraine.
– It was clear that they took her by force, she sat down to defend herself. They pushed her into the back seat and yelled at her that she didn’t want to go anywhere, Rodnenkov says.
– He tore her passport into small pieces, he says, adding that Kolesnikova jumped out of the car window and returned to the Belarusian border.
Border police say she is being held while they investigate the circumstances surrounding what happened.
Spoke at protests
Kolesnikova played a key role in the election campaign of opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has declared victory over current President Alexander Lukashenko in the controversial August elections.
While Tikhanovskaya went into exile in Lithuania, Kolesnikova has since spoken out in mass demonstrations against Lukashenko, who was declared the winner of the election with more than 80 percent of the vote.
Tikhanovskaya requests that the colleague be released immediately.
“By abducting people in broad daylight, Lukashenko shows that he is weak and scared,” he said in a statement.
Convictions
Protesters arrested during a rally in support of Maria Kolesnikova in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Tuesday. Photo: AP
France on Tuesday issued a strong condemnation of “arbitrary arrests and the practice of forcing more members of the Coordinating Council into exile.”
The EU has also called for the immediate release of hundreds of protesters and opposition figures, and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg condemns what he calls arbitrary arrests and kidnappings of opposition activists.
Forced deportation
The Ukrainian government also says that Kolesnikova refused when the Belarusian authorities tried to force her to leave the country.
– This was not a voluntary departure. It was a forced deportation from his home country, writes Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko on Facebook.
An opposition source told the Russian news agency Interfax that the entire operation may have been organized by Belarusian intelligence.
On Monday, there were reports that Kolesnikova had been loaded into a van and driven by unidentified persons in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
Great demonstrations
Kolesnikova, 38, is on the opposition coordinating council, which is trying to help Lukashenko relinquish power.
The opposition accuses the regime of widespread electoral fraud.
Since the elections, Belarus has been the scene of a series of large-scale demonstrations and hundreds of people have been arrested.
