Aug 13, 2020
What is happening in Belarus? Part 1
Continue reading: What is happening in Belarus? Part 2
Unfortunately, this article is not about self-driving cars, rather it is about situation in my home country, Belarus. Belarus is not a democratic country; it is a dictatorship. We have elections, and on the surface, it looks democratic, but in reality our government is extremely far from it.
Belarus is post-soviet country, Lukashenko has been elected as a president in 1994, 3 years after USSR collapse. We did not have time to establish true democracy and got the worst president possible. Quite soon Lukashenko returned the country into Soviet reality with the Soviet “freedom of choice”. We still have KGB and even the name has not been changed from Soviet times. In short, have you ever read “1984”? It is Belarus! Now we see consequences, we see genocide in my Belarus! If there is one thing you should know about Belarusian news and official information, it is that it is a LIE, propaganda. Not a single word of truth for 26 years. Just remember that!
I moved from Belarus a year ago. It is a land full of amazing people. All our history Belarus was a theatre of wars between different countries, so we are afraid of wars. We are extremely peaceful nation! We hate violence, but we do have one major problem. It is our dictator president.
We got used to the fact that he has an landslide victory every election. Everyone was aware about some rigging, but we believed he got 50+% of votes, because many people saw reality through their TV screens. You hardly knew anyone who votes for him, but you thought it was your Facebook bubble.
However, this year was different. It is a long story and deserve a separate article. You just need to know that Tsikhanouskaya has inspired people and everyone started to believe that she can be the one who can unite Belarusians and defeat Lukashenko. Tsikhanouskaya has never wanted to be a president, she is just a housewife. However, when her husband (potential candidate in president election campaign) has been arrested by “the most honest court in the world!”, she decided to take part in election campaign in order to free political prisoners (including her husband) and conduct free and fair elections.
Lukashenko let her to participate in the election since “woman can’t rule the country” and “no one will vote for her”. As a result, she was lucky not to be put in prison and was registered as a candidate. He underestimated her. It was an amazing campaign that deserve a movie. Whole country knew that Lukashenko would try to falsify election results, especially during the 5-day early voting period. And we have prepared! We had a plan how to win and how to prove that we won! People were advised to fold a ballot as an accordion, so everyone was able to see in bins with transparent sides that Tsikhanouskaya won!
We have been wearing white laces as a symbol of fair elections, so people would know we were voting for alternative candidates. Have you ever seen a line this long at the polling place?
This voting station claimed that Lukashenko was a winner! They did not show the official tally to the people who have been waiting for the results after 8pm. And they want us to believe that Lukashenko won?
And we have those lines everywhere, many people voted for the first time in 25 years because they knew Tsikhanouskaya could win. Have you ever spend 5–7 hours in line to vote? We did because we want her to win so much!
Lukashenko’s team has prepared as well. Polling places were awfully slow in order to limit the amount of people who were able to vote before 8pm! They are saying it was because of COVID-19 guidelines. However, previously Lukashenko and Belarus ignored COVID-19 dangers and introduced no restrictions to save people’s lives. They use COVID-19 only as an excuse to introduce limitations to election process. Consequently, some people were not able to vote. Situation when only 400 people out of 3000 were able to vote was the norm for some voting stations abroad.
They were falsifying the result. Common techniques:
- Add more ballots for Lukashenko during 5-day early voting. We got proof during elections 2020. On many voting stations we saw 110–140% turnover! But it did not help! Tsikhanouskaya got 60% even on such polling stations
- They do not count the ballots at all. They just draw numbers they memorized a few days before elections. Yes, the recording is in Russian, but the idea is that a few days before election commission had a practice announcement ballots results, they have been advised to memorize the numbers. Lukashenko had 80%.
3. You are forced to write in the rigged results after the count.
However, even rigging did not help! So, they decided do not count at all! They announced 80% votes are for Lukashenko according to exit poll (NEVER trust Belarusian officials)! His approval rating was the lowest ever, and they want us to believe those numbers? People were appalled, and they marched to the center of Minsk to show that they do not trust the numbers.
Yes, we expected that Lukashenko will arrest people who joined the protest. We got used to it. We saw it last 3 months on our streets daily:
However, we did not expect stun grenades, water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets against a peaceful gathering. We were shocked. Yes, he warned us that he can use deadly force to shut people up just as his dictator friends were doing in other countries. We have never believed it could be true! It is terror! It is a revenge! He is supposed to be a “strong man”, yet he has been defeated by a housewife, and he cannot accept it! Lukashenko knows that his only other option is The Hague, so his only hope is to eliminate protests, scare people, paralyze their will completely.
Lukashenko has prepared to election day! He organized some drills to demonstrate our army and SWAT power a few days before elections. I knew that our country has one of largest army of police/SWAT contingent, but I was shocked when I saw this amount.
He turned off internet in the entire country. He does not want video of unjustified violence to be visible to the world, so that he can look legitimate. It is the main reason SWAT is hunting for journalists! However, we have prepared as well. We learned in advance how to use VPN and proxies to share the information. After 3 days he turned the internet back on. According to the official explanation internet has been blocked by our “enemies”, e.g. Czech Republic. There is one more reason for internet blockage: we have created a site to prove our votes https://belarus2020.org/. You just need to take a picture of you ballot and send to organizer (one ballot per phone number). No internet, no chance to send a picture. Of course, officials claimed that it is illegal to take a picture (one more lie, there is no such law) and removed curtains in voting cabins to prevent people from taking pictures. Yes, they will tell you it is due to COVID-19 guidelines, but COVID-19 does not exist in Belarus.
According to official information people on that meeting were aggressive, drunk, jobless. They even show news (it is difficult to hide loud grenades, they had to show something) claiming that those people are aggressive. But do you remember what I told you in the very beginning? Correct, you will never hear a single word of truth from our “president” and officials. Do they look aggressive to you?
Yes, they keep their arms together to avoid SWAT dragging them from the crowd. We have adopted this technique during last month.
Reality is totally different, people come with families, they just wanted to demand fair elections:
This is how peaceful Minsk and other cities looked like on the election day.
You can find a lot of pictures of injured people. Thanks god, this guy is alive:
Allegedly, he told SWAT that people want a revolution and to take over an official building. What a surprise, one more lie! Reality is different, people are gathering at random locations all over the country. If you check at the capital, there are many locations, including subway stations! Nobody is interested in official buildings. It is Lukashenko who is creating a revolution. WE KNOW, HE KNOWS that Tsikhanouskaya is a winner! The truth is that Lukashenko did not have more than 30% of votes. His voters are mainly retired people who have never seen anything but official TV. Belarusian state media describes wonderful life in our country and says that people in the rest of the world are dying from hunger (including the USA). Perhaps an exaggeration, but I hope you got the idea. Also, there are many people who were forced to vote for Lukashenko, e.g. army, teachers etc. In US it was employees of Belarusian embassy in Washington DC. Out of 400+ voters only 12 were for Lukashenko (3%). We have a funny meme in the country that Lukashenko has only 3% of support.
At the same time people has been waiting near voting stations for the results. It is allowed by law, and this year we used this opportunity to reduce chances of fraud. Election officials escaped with SWAT without announcing the results:
However some voting stations were brave enough to provide fair results and people were chanting “Дзякуй!” (Thank you!). There are some results from honest polling stations (Lukashenko is number 3, Tsikhanouskaya is number 4):
The second day was crazy. Belarus does not have a history of protests, we have no leader (Tsikhanouskaya has never asked for protests, her campaign just advised to wait for results of voting stations and that’s it). People just want their voices to be heard. They want their country back. They do not want president who embarrassed Belarusians all his life. He always wanted to be a president of Russia, but unfortunately, he got us…
Nobody wanted to be a walking target, so the protesters had to stand for themselves against SWAT. They have been using fireworks and stones to keep SWAT at a distance and used trash bins to protect themselves. Not the best idea, but they were able to survive against SWAT for several hours and won. It was quite impressive that peaceful Belarusians were a able to stand their ground. Later everyone understood it was a mistake, there is no reason to keep a position. It is way more effective to leave the location and return when SWAT is gone.
The most severe fights happened near subway station Pushkinskaja (place where I used to live) and “Riga” grocery (place where I used to work):
It is how the guy look after night at Pushkinskaja:
Officials claim that one person died on Pushkinskaja because of hadmade grenade. One more lie, I am not surprised. He was shot by SWAT:
SWAT has been using cars that looks like ambulance to sneak into protests:
We may not have a clear strategy, we may not have a leader, but we do have a goal. We want honest election results. We are 100% sure Tsikhanouskaya is a winner!
In the morning relatives were trying to get information about arrested people:
Prisons are full, they have no more room. However, the worst thing is how the guards treat people:
After being severely beaten they lay on the ground for hours without a chance to go to the bathroom. For you to understand what severely beaten means (I believe it is a light case):
SWAT is beating people saying: “Now you will learn who you should vote for!”. One girl told that they pushed white bracelet (a symbol of fair elections) into her mouth.
Prisoners are given special “lessons” that humiliate, break their will and power to protest. Yeah, it is against our constitution, but who cares!
More stories:
https://www.facebook.com/nastyaulanovich/posts/1697953940380435
Every night you can here “lessons” from SWAT:
They started to pick up and rough up random people on the streets to terrorize the population:
They harmed a 5-year old girl who was in a car with their parent. For some reason they decided they need to hit the car:
A video from woman who asked a policeman whether it is safe go to the park, got a yes response then saw several aggressive arrests of youth after that. She is scared:
Boy and girl sitting on the bench near their house:
People are scared to go to protests, but they support our cause by sitting at home and allowing protestors to come in and hide. Also, they film and boo SWAT:
This is how people wish Good Night nowadays (they are chanting “Long live Belarus!”):
Our leader authorized the avengers to use real bullets:
According to officials they had to do it. Another lie…
It is genocide, we do not belong in his country! He wants us to shut up and it is scary, but protests are continuing.
Belarusians all over the world are collecting money for everyone who needs help during the fight against the regime (fired from work, need medicine, paying fines, etc.). We would greatly appreciate your contribution.
- The fundraiser collects money to provide help on time of strikes in Belarus — By_Sol
- The fundraiser helps victims of repressions — By_Help
- The fundraiser helps activists and refuges — “Country for Life”
Жыве Беларусь!
