Sviatlana Haluza broke down in June after 9. As an employee of Belarus media controlled by the output SB.by State had used degraded to rewrite the boilerplate propaganda by other state-controlled media. But now his boss had an article on the opposition leader detained Siarhei Tsikhanousky to recycle. Haluza has had a crisis of conscience. Supports secretly Tsikhanousky nomination for president. “I realized that I did not think the stuff that was said to be published and I have said it was a criminal and a villain,” he said. “I cried for 20 minutes.” Then the 23-year-old is fighting for his mother and some of his friends. They all gave the same advice: The attack should not be rewritten. simple and paste verbatim from the source material, copy, raised an item from the news agency Belarusian and your name removed from the right side. Haluza took the advice. “I wanted to make propaganda irrelevant to me,” he said. A month after the small act of resistance has made countless Haluza the country similar to itself irrelevant for propaganda. Fed up with 26 years of authoritarian rule one-man, 100,000 Belarusians on the streets of the capital Minsk on weekends for free and fair elections after the no free decision and unfair, a call took place on August 9, Alexander Lukashenko, President in office, a landslide victory with 80.23% of the votes disputed 9.9% for its main competitor Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a teacher who was for her husband on the ballot in liquidation, Tsikhanousky for what the government disqualified after his controversial arrest in May allegedly organizing a “serious breach of public order.” (The arrest was caught on video Tsikhanousky Amnesty International has marked. “Political prisoners”). Everyone knew that Lukashenko would steal the election; few thought would be stupid enough to steal with so much. Snap was caught on film plebiscite declared after the overwhelming vote shows support for Tsikhanouskaya. On days when rally the demonstrators and ordinary citizens have been thrown away on the outskirts of Minsk in overcrowded cells in a notorious prison on Okrestina. Some were stripped naked and beaten or recorded with electric shock their nocturnal cries from beyond the prison walls, and uploaded to the Internet, revitalize what had just recently rally fade. Europe’s last dictator, consent is running Monday is his last stand for survival. And lose, and in particular a demographic is in contempt women. Along with Tsikhanouskaya, the other two opposition leaders Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo, both were for men who have been forced to leave the country or thrown in view of the vote in prison. If Lukashenko thought he would make a milquetoast replacement, it was wrong. Belarusian women have clearly been the vanguard of civil resistance so far, to form across the country in white clothes untwisting and “chain of solidarity” human Falange against thugs helmets OMON riot police. As Nobel Prize Belarusian Sviatlana put Alexievich, “According to Lukashenko, only those who have served in the military, are eligible to occupy the presidency. I want to tell him that we have entered the era of women” Linas Linkevicius, the foreign minister of neighboring Lithuania, has in relation to Lukashenko as “the former president in Belarus” on Twitter. The former traditional base of the President of the industrial worker seems that the past tense estimate closer to the nearest inch. A general strike was declared. Monday ‘, the workers shamelessly booed the former chairman of the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, transforming comfort zone Lukashenko in a pillory. “Go away!” the workers shouted as he said weakly put away his cell phone. It would not be elections, he has sworn to him someone killed. It ‘been a Freudian slip that democracy always a performance art as a political reality was more than 1,989 forgotten in a post-Soviet state that seems the country for decades. The secret police is mentioned here as the KGB. Seventy percent of the economy and still run by the central government owned. And the crowd kept fed a steady diet of platitudes socialist realism until a week ago, the moustachioed helmsman aging. In March, Lukashenko dismissed as “madness and psychosis crown pandemic,” nothing that a palliative male Troika Vodka, a sauna and a movement of the tractor can not cure. (Later he said that infected with the virus, but “power [ed] to” to show any symptoms.) There was no blockade in Belarus, a country of 9.5 million, of which about 70,000 were diagnosed and 613 died, according to the World health organization. And in a time when all the other world leaders on a form before the cameras was to appear, Lukashenko was in a sports jersey lift a hockey puck in a stadium packed to Minsk to strike. “It ‘s better to die standing than live on your knees,” he said. “I knelt in my life for the first time in front of you down,” he says now, uncertainty recognize his government, albeit without actually knees. Like any wobbly strong man, Lukashenko casts a variety of invisible enemies and contradictory to his misfortune. First, there were Russian mercenaries, 33, were taken from those trapped in Minsk before the election and accused the opposition Belarusian sent there is already an ally supporter of Moscow into a satrapy to do it. Then the Poles, were forced by the Dutch and a clique of captured “Russian revolutionaries,” the promise of video, would revolutions not Foment more and apparently crossed the border with manual stole of firearms and popular Israeli history of assassinations. Then there was Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, despite the legal prosecution at home, and deception and has to foment the necessary resources, the political instability next door. (Navalny was poisoned with an unknown chemical. He is now, according to the deputy head of the hospital, was admitted to intensive care in Omsk, where doctors “to save his life currently involved in the process”) Finally, NATO was of course there that Lukashenko the Belarusian border ready to mobilize its “black, yellow mouth and blonde” with the soldiers to destroy the nation. Perhaps in response to this conspiracy theory latter Lukashenko called for military support from the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin lukewarm vote of support for “collective security”, Striding responded a Russian troop commitment or irregular in Belarus to send what would be a bold rendering of Moscow’s invasion of the Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, which doesn ‘ t necessarily a rejection is just to do it. That does not necessarily amount to a refusal to do just that. (Staff confirmed Russian Minsk, was transported to the state media of Belarus to keep running while local workers strike.) Sign of decline and fall of Lukashenko were always there if you know where to look for them. In some cases, this might be the scheme with the same executor of Ancien. TIME spoke with three women in Belarus this week about Zoom. All had just fled in Kiev, in Ukraine, their country before the rigged elections. Katsiaryna Kupryianava, 30, was collecting signatures for Tsikhanouskaya in Minsk Oblast. The authorities have decided to intimidate her by her younger brother, Ilya Bandarenka, 18. He was not able to sit was his high school because he was sick with a fever ordinary targeting. Bandarenka had gone to his local hospital and received his waiver exam postponed for another day. Belarusian police turned them into a provocation against the state. Bandarenka, they claimed, had imitated his sick leave, despite the fact that the hospital had ensured for its authenticity. Kupryianava was later subpoenaed as part of a criminal investigation that had said no basic content. “There are no specific charges against me were,” he said. “The police had started a criminal case against my brother claims he forged medical documents had been available, though not pretend, and even if they were, if they were so, nothing would have to do with me.” She and Bаndarenkа went to their local Police Station. One of the officials added there who have been called only because Kupriyanova was to Collect signatures for the opposition. It was an indication that the network connects to an enemy of the people. On the eve of a meeting with Kupriyanova Tsikhanouskaya the proxy had organized his home he was searched. She and her brother was at home and escorted back to the police station, the rest of her hectic family in tow. They were finally freed. But now she knew she had to do. Kupriyanova Bondarenko and fled Belarus for Ukraine July 27 Bazhena Zholudz, 20, had campaigned for the opposition in Recica, an ancient city in southeastern Belarus, which had seen a flood of pamphlets disseminated say Lukashenko that the support of only 3% of the voters controlled during Tsikhanouskaya had 97%. Zholudz is not widespread, it claims, but decided the police, their fault anyway. On 16 July, he received a notice of their public defacement of buildings accused. She was called to be the police station questioned. He left the election in the coming weeks than ten times. Often it is not Zholudz was asked once every violation of the law, but has been warned that a much worse fate awaited them if they continued their activism. Once a police officer called her and asked if she would come to the station or if he had to get in a protest. It was a joke, but also a discrete signal he wanted his purely political work, was not administratively know. “I told him that I feel,” said Zhloudz. “But when I arrived at the station, he was not there. They told me that he left.” Zhloudz returned to his apartment. The officer turned and said that while he knew he was at the station, he was to write in his diary that he was going to arrest her at home. “They understand what happened,” said Zhloudz. “We spy, although we know that they correspond to the charge.” What Zholudz convinced the country was to leave the connivance of the employer with the authorities. He had as a registrar at the medical facility was working children and one day her supervisor received a call instructing her Zholudz in building keep to avoid participating in one of their planned hearings. It was clear by now, the authorities wanted to catch them for technical reasons, to prevent me from respecting the sham investigation. “I resigned I told my manager, ‘You can not keep me here against my ..’ I was not turning up at the police station for not going to stop” She went to the station where (interrogator was another every time) you said that a “provocation” was prepared against her. He decided to emigrate. Zholudz and her boyfriend drove from Belarus on the Ukrainian border, on August 6, three days before the election. crossed the border on foot, was a well-connected Ukrainian friend on the other side meets. the exodus of Belarusians in Ukraine has no doubt, not only for its proximity to the country, but also common political experience. six years ago, Maidan Square demonstrations swept Kiev because Ukraine, the president election promises of Viktor Yanukovich broke the closest nation to bring EU integration, and broke his will and fins anzielle promotion of Moscow. The Ukrainians were then arrested and beaten, too; They were hit in their capital on the main street of snipers. While Belarusians as geopolitical concerns-galvanize their movement is not mainly due to the transparency repression at home they have certainly dealt with feels the same. How does the common sense of democratic solidarity. In Sviatlana Haluza case of Kiev was also the city where she felt she could take in their true identity and their misstep. Even before her or his last name from this hatchet job on Siarhei Tsikhanousky had to keep it, put two sets of books. It was his official dayjob to SB.by (SB for the Soviet Belarus) who had only taken for a national law because of mandates that all recipients of a free college degree compensate the state with a minimum of two years of service public. Considering their degree in journalism from Belarus State University, she wanted to bring back the news. They did not, but still could withdraw just before he was commissioned, it is done without paying a penalty could not afford. Then there was Haluza side gig as a correspondent for Salidarnast pseudonym, an opposition website. In its capacity plausible unofficial and deniable as “Sviatlana Dobrovolskaya,” he wrote the opposite of what rewritten to SB.by. There were stories based on facts about health care professionals struggle pandemic Lukashenko minimized; to save others on volunteers to stray dogs and cats. Haluza was not alone. His colleagues SB.by said among other things for other anti-Lukashenko portals fellow dissidents drugs incognito and have been reprimanded, as it was for the opposition sympathy messages on Facebook. Haluza contract concluded on 31 July, has wasted no time left SB.by Belarus and also for fear that would explain the course of the then upcoming election Lukashenko martial law and the roads would be violently as it really was. She went to the Ukraine and has worked as a poller start for the Belarusian diaspora in Kiev. On August 9 election Haluza day gave a speech at the memorial of their own country and colleague Pavel Sheremet, that was killed by a car bomb as he left his apartment while for work at Ukrainska Pravda commute, an online newspaper. Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian citizen, was once a political prisoner in Minsk, it is the first during the tenure of Lukashenko in 1997. Haluza wanted them to show respect, but also honor him in a way different from being in uniform for the atone for their role designed as a writer. “I Tsikhanousky the monument apologized,” he said. “I do not know if you heard my apologies. But I needed to hear.” With reporting by Palina Brodik Picture copyright by Evgeny Maloletka Bloomberg / Getty Images
How small acts of Defiance transformed into a mass movement against the last dictator of Europe
