19 March 2024, Tuesday, 10:31
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Luhansk-born KGB officer against Charter-97

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Luhansk-born KGB officer against Charter-97

The regime has been struggling against our website for 16 years.

Interior minister Ihar Shunevich, who yesterday demanded the full blocking of charter97.org in Belarus, is my old “friend”. I saw him for the first time during an interrogation in the KGB jail in 2011. Shunevich then headed a KGB department specialising on opposition.

I had three or four interrogations a day in the KGB jail, where I was thrown into on accusations of organising protests against the rigged results of the presidential elections (a possible punishment is up to 15 years in prison). Shunevich stood out from others. He carried out interrogations at night and without a lawyer, in the office of the jail chief. Everything showed he was such an important person that even the chief of the KGB jail was ready to give him his office.

Shunevich asked idiotic questions. He asked about relations with European and American politicians and public figures, trying to frame up a case on an international “plot” against Lukashenka.

Nothing was able to surprise me then. Before the arrest, charter97.org survived several raids, our computers and equipment were seized two times, I was beaten twice – during the first raid and before the arrest on 19 December 2010. The most terrible thing is that my friend and founder of Charter-97 Aleh Biabenin was killed. It was a war to destroy us.

But we survived despite all attempts of Shunevich and other KGB officers. The website continued to work from Lithuania, when our staff members faced repression, and then from Poland. The people who remember the struggle of Solidarity and Sajudis in the times of communist dictatorship help us.

Yesterday's statement by Shunevich wasn't a surprise for me for two reasons.

The first one is that I realise the power of Charter-97 and know how the authorities fear it. Any dictatorship is afraid of uncontrolled uncensored information. The war against us that was declared several years ago has not ended. Restricted access, blocking during important political events, blackmailing and putting pressure on volunteers of charter97.org in Belarus cannot close the website, so they tried to block access to us for all Belarusians.

Secondly, search Google for the home town of the Belarusian interior minister. He was born in the Luhansk region. We stand for Ukraine's territorial integrity in the war initiated by Russia against our neighbours. I don't think that Shunevich, who is personally involved in repression against democratic opposition, supports the government of the country that came to power through a revolution. He is a faithful servant of his master Lukashenka.

I have a habit of looking for pluses in any situation. Interrogations and torture in the KGB gave me to understand that the whole security system defending Lukashenka is absolutely pro-Russian. The truth about the war in Ukraine cannot but make Shunevich nervous. His friends and associates are officers of the Russian intelligence Borodai, Girkin and Bes (Bezler).

It's worth noting that the threat of blocking independent websites appeared in the time of the so called “liberalisation” in Belarus that was labeled so by politicians and “experts” of unsavoury reputation. Such figures always appear in the most difficult for the Lukashenka regime year, when the economic situation is poor and when the dictatorship urgently needs financial aid. Lukashenka's lobbyists began to shout at every corner about “decreased repression” in Belarus, “forgetting” about killed opposition leaders, jailed political prisoners, fraudulent election campaigns and the closure of almost all independent media.

I saw it when Aleh Biabenin was killed and OSCE experts, who were invited by a western diplomat, said it was a suicide, trying to preserve an appearance of the “dialogue” between Lukashenka and Europe. You know what happened next: mass arrests in the style of 1937 and torture of political prisoners.

They have decided to close us under the pretense of an anti-drug campaign, though all in Belarus know that drug dens have the protection of those who are supposed to struggle against them. The website Charter-97 was put on the blacklist in 2011, during the campaign for Internet “morality”.

We are seeing attempts to eliminate the last buds of free speech in Belarus in the period when another robbery of people under the guise of devaluation is planned and ahead of the pseudo-elections.

We hope for the international and Belarusian solidarity. The website Charter-97 has worked, works and will work for Belarus.

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of charter97.org

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