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On Wednesday morning, Kajsa Öberg Lindsten spoke with Svetlana Alexievitch by phone. He then told her that there were suspicious cars outside and that men in black masks were on their way to his apartment.
– She just said, I can’t speak, now there are men with black masks. They are here now, she says.
So, the suspicion is that she has been kidnapped?
– Do you suspect? There are no suspicions!
– How can I know? If Svetlana says that, so be it.
Svetlana Alexeyevich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015. She also lived in Gothenburg between 2006 and 2008, when she lived in the city as a refugee author and regularly published texts in Göteborgs-Posten. Today she lives in Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
In connection with the unrest in the country, Kajsa Öberg Lindsten has had contact with the world-famous author. When the information that the opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova was arrested and people were taken away, she has worried about her friend.
READ MORE: Kolesnikova avoided exile: broke the passport
On Wednesday morning he spoke with Svetlana Alexeyevich, who later said that only she was left from the so-called Coordination Council, a group of seven people, which explains that it works for a transition to democracy and human rights.
– In part, she was ill and could hardly speak. Then she said we should be careful.
Kajsa Öberg Lindsten sent the information to a mailing list, made up of people who care about the situation in Belarus and Svetlana Alexeyevich. She then received a reply directly from Alexeyevich’s Swedish editor Ola Wallin. He said there were rumors that they would take her away during the day.
– Then I got really worried considering how it sounded, says Kajsa Öberg Lindsten.
Editorial Ola Wallin, at the Ersatz publishing house, when Svetlana Alexievitch won the Nobel Prize. Photo: Marcus Ericsson / TT
“She is the conscience of the country”
Initially, it was believed that Svetlana Alexievitch had been kidnapped. But the men shouldn’t have entered her apartment, says Ola Wallin. Just before lunch, Swedish time, people must have started coming to his house to help.
– She has urged the public to get there. But that should be careful and come in large groups. There are black buses in the yard. It is said that diplomats have already arrived to try to protect her with their presence.
So it escalated on the spot?
– Yes, exactly, and you have said that you are willing to speak to the press on the spot.
READ MORE: That’s why the Kremlin wants Navalny in a coma
Ola Wallin explains that the situation in Belarus has recently escalated.
– They have arrested one by one in this Coordination Council, until they arrested Maksim Znak. Then only she was left. But as Alexeyevich says, it is not the Coordination Council that has rebelled.
What exactly is the Coordination Council?
– It is especially the intellectuals who offered to mediate between Lukashenko and the people.
What are you doing now?
– Above all, we try to spread this news.
That they choose to go for Svetlana Alexievitch, thinks Ola Wallin, is a serious indication. Kajsa Öberg Lindsten is on a similar line of thought.
– He is such an important person, he is the conscience of the country. Then she is 72 years old and has health problems.
The text is updated.
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