It is with a heavy heart that Students For Liberty informs you that our student leader and civil rights activist, Piotr Markiełaŭ, has been once again arrested and jailed by the Belarusian authorities.
Five years ago, a Belarusian teenager studying film in Poland set up a YouTube channel to show videos that he made and poke fun at his country's longtime leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
In Belarus people have been taking the streets for weeks against a dictator who is trying to suppress the protests with all the harshness of the state apparatus. Despite all the reprisals against the own population, they behave peacefully during all protests.
PLAN VICTORY - published by NEXTA Network
"Your Batska is so good! How come you don't like him?" — Belarusians don't speak that way. Nobody calls Alexander Lukashenko "Batska" in Belarus any more.
We the undersigned, European accredited diplomats who participated in diplomatic watch activities during early voting 4-8 August and on Election Day of 9 August in Belarus, would like to:
- commend all those independent observers we have met during our work, mostly outside the polling stations;
- thank explicitly those members of the electoral commissions who welcomed us wholeheartedly and were open for a constructive cooperation;
- applaud those heads of polling station who assured a fair counting of the votes;
Thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to revolt after the country’s Central Election Commission announced that Alexander Lukashenko had won with 80.23% of the presidential election vote on Sunday.
