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SOLO: (left) Maxim Znak, Liliya Vlasova, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Maria Kolesnikova, Sergei Dylevsky, Olga Kovalkova and Pavel Latushko have been kidnapped or fled Belarus after the elections. Author Svetlana Alexeyevich (in color) is the only one left in the country. Photo montage: Hallgeir Vågenes
One by one, members of the opposition leadership in Belarus disappear. Now only the winner of the Nobel Prize Svetlana Alexeyevich (72) remains.
After masked men tried to enter the apartment of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Svetlana Alexeyevich (72) on Wednesday, she has been treated by representatives of the Swedish embassy in Minsk, reports Dagens Nyheter.
The award-winning author is now the only one left, out of a total of eight members of the opposition coordinating council, who has neither been kidnapped nor fled abroad.
ABOVE: On Wednesday, September 9, lawyer Maxim Znak was abducted by masked men. Photo: TATYANA ZENKOVICH / EPA
Kolesnikova in custody
Until recently, Alexeyevich was also the only known person to be found on Belarusian soil.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, there were reports that kidnapped Maria Kolesnikova is detained in the Volodarsky district of Minsk, and now awaiting her case, writes tut.by.
On Thursday, it reports that KGB officials threatened to cut her to pieces if she did not leave the country, Reuters reports.
The latest reports on Kolesnikova before that were that she had broken her own passport to avoid deportation from her home country at the border with Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities.
After the kidnapping, Kolesnikova was quiet for almost two days. It is said that he was deprived of his mobile phone and had to see two of his colleagues expelled from Belarus at the same border post through which he escaped.
ABOVE: Maria Kolesnikova was forced into a car in Minsk and driven to the border with Ukraine. Photo: TATYANA ZENKOVICH / EPA
New kidnapping on Wednesday
In recent weeks, following elections in which President Alexander Lukashenko once again declared himself the winner, there have been frequent reports of disappearances, threats, kidnappings and blackmail of Belarusian opposition figures.
In particular, the eight members of the management of the Coordination Council are exposed.
On Wednesday, Belarusian opposition politician Maxim Znak was taken by surprise and kidnapped by masked men in plain clothes, sources close to Znak told the Interfax news agency.
Znak’s disappearance is similar to what happened to opposition colleague Maria Kolesnikova earlier this week. Znak is Kolesnikova’s lawyer, and as of Wednesday’s kidnapping he was one of only two council members who have been able to continue his work within Belarus, according to Radio Free Europe.
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The one who now remains in the leadership of the council is the 72-year-old author Svetlana Alexeyevich, who has been largely prevented from participating in the protests against the president due to her health condition. However, she is an active collaborator of the opposition from home.
On Wednesday afternoon, a press release came from Alexeyevich.
“There are no longer any of my like-minded friends in the leadership of the Coordinating Council. They are all in prison or deported abroad. Today they took the last one, Maxim Znak,” he writes in notifications.
PAIN: Author Svetlana Alexeyevich expresses great sadness and anger at the condition of her home country in the press release she wrote on Wednesday. Photo: Sergei Grits / TT NEWS AGENCY
“Dumped” in Poland
Of the remaining five members, some have been forced to flee their home country after the elections. Others have been brutally expelled.
Christian Democratic politician Olga Kovalkova was forcibly taken to the border on September 5 and “released into no-man’s-land” on Polish territory, according to the Coordination Council. CNN. Kovalkova is now in Warsaw.
CLOSE SUPPORTER: Olga Kovalkova with presidential candidate Svetlana Tikanovskaya. Photo: WOJTEK RADWANSKI / AFP
The prominent lawyer Liliya Vlasova (67) remains in detention and international bar associations are demanding that the Belarusian authorities release her immediately, without this having happened.
The engineer and manager of the Minsk tractor factory, Sergei Dylevsky, remains in prison after participating in peaceful protests almost four weeks ago.
Pavel Latushko (47), former Minister of Culture and ambassador to France, Poland and Spain, left for Poland shortly after the elections and has not been in his home country since the situation in Belarus worsened.
The fifth and final is presidential candidate Svetlana Tikanovskaya, who founded the council and appointed the other seven members.
After the elections, Tikanovskaya continued her political work from exile in Lithuania, fearing for her safety and that of her children.
