Zmitser Bandarenka: Tens of thousands of Belarusian refugees may escape to the EU

If protests are not allowed, problems are brought to the bottom, and a social upheaval occurs.

Zmitser Bandarenka, the coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus", stated that at the working session "Freedom of peaceful assemblies and associations", the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) of OSCE in Warsaw, the charter97.org correspondent reports.

- Now we are in Warsaw and the Polish mass media reports that there were more than 700 authorized protests in the capital last year, Zmitser Bandarenka said. - Within 600 km of Warsaw, in Minsk, there were almost no authorized protests. Is Belarus a country of paradise? - No, I guess. The most important issues are as follows: election frauds, deployment of new Russian bases within the country, a cutback in production - in recent years Minsk has suffered 35% decrease. Out-of-work benefits in Belarus make up only $15. Over the past few years the Belarusian ruble has been devaluated in six times.

When the government prohibits any protests, opposition and the citizens have to hold them without authorization. It is mentioned that Belarus has recently released political prisoners. But yesterday Mikalai Statkevich was fined for "unauthorized picket" during the election campaign. If court repeatedly recognizes him guilty, he may appear behind bars again.

Repressions help the Belarusian regime to retain the power during a long time. It is believed that the Soviet Union used to be a totalitarian state, and today's Belarus is an authoritarian one. But hereby, the number of police officers in 100 000 people in the USSR was seven times less than that of Belarus. In fact, it is a police-run state fed by the Russian Federation for a while. If protests are not allowed, problems are brought to the bottom, and sooner or later people rise against dictatorship. This situation may cause tens of thousands of Belarusian refugees to the European Union.