“Yesterday, another wave of searches and arrests swept across Belarus. The regime even conducted a raid in a town of just two thousand, detaining 14 innocent people. From this one instance, we can only imagine the scale of detentions across the country… People’s phones are being inspected in attempts to find if they have photos from protest rallies or follow so-called “extremist” media. The repression is intensifying. Now, before arrests, authorities disable people’s mobile networks through their providers so they can’t alert loved ones about their detention.
Once the dictator throws a person behind bars, their life is divided into “before” and “after”. Political prisoners are denied medical care, not allowed to receive parcels with warm clothing or medications, and subjected to both physical and psychological abuse. Even administrative arrests on “political charges” are horrific torture. That is why those who spend even a couple of months in detention emerge unrecognizable. Eight people, in fact, have been driven to death in the regime’s prisons…
All of this is happening against the backdrop of an election campaign and the final day for candidate registration in the “presidential” race. Lukashenka tries to plant the idea that society has supposedly “turned the page” and accepted his rules of the game. But yesterday’s mass arrests are proof of just how afraid he is that things won’t go according to his plan. This underscores one thing – the regime’s stability is built on coercion and fear rather than on trust.
It is particularly important right now for all of us to stand together. And it is warmth and simple human gestures that prove that no matter what happens, we still have one another”.
