The arrest of the dissident shocks the Belarusian opposition

It was two years ago, after Belarusian authorities arrested a friend accused of making drugs apparently, that Roman Protasevich first noticed suspicious men following him to Minsk and fled to Poland, where he sought political asylum.

Since then, dissident blogger and other opposition figures have fought strong President Alexander Lukashenko from European capitals such as Vilnius and Warsaw. Hosting large expat communities in disagreement with the regime, they thought they were out of reach and protected by EU law.

Last Sunday, however, that calculation changed dramatically. Lukashenko launched a fighter jet quite down from Ryanair and arrested Protasevich on his way home from Vilnius with his Greek vacation girlfriend.

“It simply came to our notice then. I had no way of knowing what would happen: I was on EU territory on an EU flight, “Protasevich’s father, Dmitry, told the Financial Times.” I think the fear only subsided when he realized they were giving the return to the airplane “.

Lukashenko’s move provoked immediate Western disgrace and the promise of EU sanctions. While he encouraged Belarusian opposition leaders, he also injected a new layer of fear into their lives. Most of them are already in prison or in exile, where they fear for the safety of relatives at home.

“No one is sure right now. Neither in Belarus nor in the EU, “said Franak Viacorka, an aide to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition presidential candidate who fled to Vilnius last year following threats from the Belarussian security agency, still known as the KGB in its Soviet days.

It was last August that Lukashenko, a former collective farmer with a mustache who has ruled with an iron fist for 27 years, increased his pressure against dissent, after hundreds of thousands protested his highly dubious re-election.

Since then, police have arrested more than 34,000 protesters, allegedly torturing many detainees. Yet, even according to these rules, Protasevich’s arrest meant an escalation of repression and a worrying sign of worse potential to come.

“All fugitives and protests” would be held accountable for their crimes, “Lukashenko threatened this week, making it clear that Belarus would pursue exile activists wherever they were.

Protasevich’s arrest was a particular shock to Tsikhanouskaya and Viacorka, as they had only taken the same flight from Athens a week earlier. “The whole KGB is working right now to destroy Tsikhanouskaya. We have to be aware of that and we have to take care of ourselves, ”said Viacorka.

It was in 2010 that Belarus ’exiled community began to grow after Lukashenko suppressed major protests for the last time after proclaiming an electoral defeat in the long run.

In response, Western countries increased support for opposition media, including the US-funded Radio Free Europe, and Poland-funded Belsat. However, for several years, dissidents continued to visit Belarus.

But then Nexta, a Polish-based opposition channel on the Telegram messaging application, began publishing leaks from the Belarusian authorities and films implicating Lukashenko in corruption.

Back then, last summer, Nexta played a prominent role in publishing accounts on the ground of the protests, sometimes even seemingly directing them. Edited then by Protasevich, the audience at one point exceeded 2 m, a huge number in a country of only 9.5 m.

Nexta’s success conveyed the depth of Belarusian frustration with Lukashenko. But it also seems to have convinced Lukashenko that exiled dissidents posed an existential threat to his government.

“Journalists and their channels did not eat his words. They really insulted [Lukashenko and his regime]”It is entirely possible that Lukashenko has personally offended himself,” said Igor Trushkevich, a Belarusian dissident living in Ukraine.

To tighten the noose around Protasevich, his family said a KGB agent tried to convince his father, a retired lieutenant colonel, to trick his son into going to Prague, where security forces would kidnap him. When his parents moved to Poland, Lukashenko personally stripped Protasevich’s father of his military rank.

Nexta sources also became targets. Belarus’s Supreme Court on Monday sentenced an army officer to 18 years in prison for sending Nexta a document showing that the Interior Ministry had asked thousands of troops to quell “mass riots.”

Stsiapan Putsila, founder of Nexta, says that since Protasevich’s arrest, he and his colleagues have been receiving threats that they would be killed or handed over to the Belarusian authorities or their exploited Warsaw office.

“Of course we have to be a little more careful. . . all comments suggest that we are the following, “he said after Protasevich told FT.” But we must continue, we must continue to fight, we must continue to protest against the regime and we will.

Either way, Trushkevich believes the forced landing of the Ryanair flight was also designed to scare Nexta readers.

“The first sign is just to scare people into making them think this can happen to them,” he said. “The second is to show their supporters the power they have and the stability of the government. Anyone who crosses a line they have drawn will have problems, permanently.”

After a turbulent week, the opposition in Belarus has mixed emotions. There is terror in the arrest of Protasevich and his girlfriend. But there are also hopes that will drive the international community to take tougher action against Lukashenko, including imposing sanctions.

“That day when we tried to find out what was going on, I couldn’t sleep or eat. It was terrible, “said Aksana, a Minsk businesswoman.” On the other hand, I hope the situation will help remind the world that we need to pay attention, because we can’t do it alone. We’re not going to fight with weapons. fire “.