The authoritarian president of Belarus on Saturday visited and spoke with opposition activists in prison. The activists were imprisoned in protest of his re-election. President Lukashenko’s re-election is widely seen as the result of election rigging and has sparked protests that have lasted two months.
President Lukashenko spoke with his political opponents for more than four hours in a Minsk prison, which belongs to the Belarusian State Security Committee. The prison belongs to the Belarusian State Security Committee. The Council still uses the Soviet-era name KGB.
President Lukashenko’s office said, “The president’s goal is to listen to all of them.” Several of the 11 imprisoned men who took part in conversations with Lukashenko in prison are members of the opposition’s Coordinating Council, as well as shareholder Viktor Babalik, a former chief executive of a major Russian bank. He had previously intended to challenge Lukashenko in the elections, but was arrested in May of this year. He said that the charges against him were politically motivated.
Lukashenko’s re-election to the presidency on August 9 with an overwhelming majority was widely seen as the result of election rigging. The Belarusian public is generally unhappy with his 26 years of authoritarian rule, his indifferent response to the new coronavirus epidemic, and his worsening economic situation.
In the days following the election, Belarusian authorities violently cracked down on peaceful demonstrators, with tens of thousands of demonstrators arrested and hundreds of people beaten by police. This situation led to international condemnation and further increased the momentum of the demonstrators.
Lukashenko’s main challenger in the election, Tikhanovskaya, left the country for Lithuania under pressure from the authorities. Tikhanovskaya claimed that Lukashenko’s visit to imprisoned opponents was a result of the ongoing protests. She strongly demanded that new elections be held.
Lukashenka’s visit to the prison is tantamount to an acknowledgement of the existence of political prisoners,” Tikhanovskaya said in a statement. Earlier he called them criminals. Today’s events are the result of our pressure.”
The European Union and the United States say the election in Belarus was neither free nor fair and have sanctioned dozens of Belarusian officials for election fraud and repression of protesters as a result. But the EU and U.S. have not targeted Lukashenko for sanctions.
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