“Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Thank you for the invitation to discuss the crisis in Belarus with you today.
My country is now undergoing the traumatic process of transformation where many similarities with the other post-soviet situations can be found, including Central Asia. I believe that sharing these experiences can be mutually helpful.
On Monday, it will be exactly one year after the presidential elections in Belarus. These elections were rigged and stolen, and ex-president Alexander Lukashenka has managed to hold power by force. But he has not managed to normalize and stabilize the situation, and since August 2020, Belarus has been in a state of constant political and humanitarian crisis. And it’s getting worse day by day, month by month.
By May 2021, Belarusians have already seen the murder of at least 10 peaceful protesters, the imprisonment of more than 36000, and the criminal prosecution of hundreds by the regime. Despite that, Belarusians did not turn to violent means in their struggle, and 3/4 of a million citizens supported my proposition to organize the mediated negotiations to overcome the crisis. However, the regime refused the peaceful way of negotiations and instead chose the method of escalation. On May 18th, the main Belarusian independent media TUT.BY with at least 3 million readers across the country was brutally shut down and its editors arrested. On May 21, a political prisoner and democratic activist, Vitold Ashurak, died in prison under suspicious circumstances. Finally, on May 23, the Ryanair airplane was hijacked and forcibly landed in Minsk, and the journalist Raman Pratasevich with his girlfriend Sophia Sapega were kidnapped.
By doing so, the regime once again refused to be a part of the civilized world and embraced the role of international terrorists. The crisis in Belarus stopped being the local conflict about the presidential legitimacy and turned into the problem of regional security.
This summer, Lukashenka has weaponized illegal migration through the territory of Belarus as a tool to create a crisis at the border with Lithuania and to provoke the European Union. How this scheme of human trafficking works has already been investigated. A large body of evidence is gathered to prove that the Belarusian authorities organized this flow of migrants. Lithuania took a strong position and started sending those migrants back. The regime in Minsk answered this yesterday by spreading fake news about one Iraqi citizen killed by a Lithuanian border patrol, but no proof is given.
Within the country, the repression has been intensifying to get rid of civil society in general. Dozens of national and regional media and more than fifty NGOs have been closed. As of today, there are over 600 political prisoners in Belarus, and this number is growing every day. Peaceful protesters, political activists, journalists, and human rights defenders are targeted in particular.
Since the beginning of August, the situation has once again become particularly intense. On Sunday, the authorities tried to force the Olympic runner Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to leave Tokyo for Belarus in response to her denouncing the actions of the Belarusian Olympic Committee run by Lukashenka’s son. Now she has arrived in Poland. Krystsina's case is significant for two reasons. First, there was nothing "political" in her action – she only refused to run 400 meters instead of 200, which is not what she was training for. Second, in her case, Lukashenka's regime tried to implement its violence, not in Belarus but abroad. Only the quick reaction of Tsimanouskaya, the Belarusian diaspora in Japan, and local authorities saved the athlete.
This escalation of violence does not mean that the regime is strong. Quite the contrary. After a year of repression, Belarusians do not accept the new status quo and do not recognize Lukashenka as a legitimate president, and neither does the international community. Even when the mass protests have become almost impossible, Belarusians find ways to show the regime that it is illegitimate, and this constant pressure destabilizes the system and forces it to make mistakes. Yesterday my friend Maria Kalesnikava and my lawyer Maxim Znak were on the closed trial for the so-called "seizure of power", but after almost a year in prison, they do not give up, they disagree with their charges they continue to smile and to support us all.
I am sure that the only way out of the Belarusian crisis is through new elections, and the only future for Belarus is a democratic, independent, and prosperous country. The experience of Lukashenka's regime and last year especially taught us that dictatorship is only possible if the society is passive and the outside world is indifferent. I call for solidarity and support for Belarus. I hope that the peaceful resistance of Belarusians can inspire people around the globe to value democracy where they have it and fight for it where they lack it.
Thank you!”.
