Repression has been fierce in this country of 9 million people, since the popular uprising against the rigged re-election of dictator Alexander Lukashenko two years ago. Like Ales Bialiatski in prison for more than a year, more than 1,300 people are still behind bars. This is the tally from the Center for the Defense of Human Rights Viasna, Bialiatski’s organization.
The main figures of the protest in Belarus – the opposition prefers to say Belarus – are all imprisoned, in particular the blogger Serguei Tsikhanovski, sentenced to 18 years in prison last December. There is also Artyom Sakov, sentenced to 16 years in prison, or Mikola Statkevitch, sentenced to 14 years. The Viasna center has also recorded 40,000 arrests and 3,000 cases of torture. 550 NGOs have also been closed. Not to mention that the law was toughened last spring: it now authorizes the death penalty for any “attempted act of terrorism”. However, this is the main ground for prosecution used against opponents. The repression, which initially targeted declared political opponents exclusively, extended to whole sections of society, in particular association activists and journalists. 33 are currently behind bars.
When they are not in prison, the opponents are in exile. Our Franco-Belarusian colleague Andrei Vaitovich estimates that 250,000 people have fled the country over the past two years. Mainly to Poland, Georgia, and the Baltic countries, mainly Lithuania. All independent media have chosen exile, as have many intellectuals, students, lawyers, artists, computer scientists.
Also in exile are two symbols of protest: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaia, the wife of Tsikhanovski, now well known to the general public. She lives in Vilnius, Lithuania. She welcomed earlier the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Ales Bialiatski, calling for the release of all political prisoners. We can also cite Pavel Latushko, former Minister of Culture, who founded a sort of parallel government in exile, in Warsaw, Poland. Many exiles had also initially chosen to leave for Ukraine. But the war, since February, has often forced them to a new exodus.
However, all forms of protest have not disappeared in the country, but protest has become underground. It manifested itself last spring in dozens of acts of sabotage on the railway lines, when the Belarusian government, Moscow’s first ally, wanted to facilitate the transport of Russian troops to Ukraine.
The resistance also translates into a whole information network aimed at the Ukrainian army, in particular in order to to know military movements on Belarusian soil. This information is transmitted via encrypted messengers such as Telegram. Because the power, despite the extent of its repressive means, could not close all social networks. Many residents also manage to get informed by installing VPNs to circumvent Internet censorship. Simply, they cannot express anything publicly, at the risk of ending up directly in prison.