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Belarusian state media mentioned on Tuesday that Maria Kolesnikova, a key opposition determine, had been detained on the Belarusian aspect of the border between Ukraine and Belarus. The assertion was made by Belarusian Border Control, and aired on state TV.
“The disappearance of the candidates demonstrates beyond all doubt the brutality of this regime and how important it is that the international community doesn’t lose interest in the appalling events that have unfolded since the election,” Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the UK’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, instructed CNN.
Kolesnikova joined forces with fellow opposition candidates Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo to tackle Lukashenko within the election after a number of opposition candidates had been both barred from working or jailed.
Tikhanovskaya and Tsepkalo left Belarus within the fast aftermath of the election, whereas Kolesnikova stayed and spoke out in opposition to the end result. She instructed CNN in an interview on August 13 that Lukashenko “has to accept that the Belarusian people don’t like him and don’t like for him to stay the President of Belarus.”
Maria Kolesnikova
Kolesnikova disappeared in central Minsk on Monday. Two of her colleagues from the Coordination Council, the primary Belarusian opposition group additionally disappeared shortly after.
Her colleagues handed via the Alexandrovka checkpoint into Ukraine at four a.m., in accordance to Belarusian Border Control. Kolesnikova didn’t.
Ukrainian State Border Guard Service press officer Oleg Bokyo mentioned Kolesnikova “did not arrive at the checkpoint of Ukraine for border control.”
Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from her exile in Lithuania on Monday, Tikhanovskaya mentioned: “At the moment, members of the Coordinated Council I created are chased, kidnapped and harassed. And it’s worrying me a lot, because at the moment we still don’t know where Maria Kolesnikova is.”
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya
She had publicly questioned the results of the election, demanding a recount after the Central Election Commission introduced that she had solely received 9.9% of the vote.
“We do not recognize the election results,” she mentioned. “We have seen real protocols. We urge those who believe that their voice was stolen not to remain silent.”
Veronika Tsepkalo
Tsepkalo, who served as an adviser to Tikhanovskaya, in the meantime, fled Belarus for Moscow for security causes earlier than the election befell, her marketing campaign instructed CNN.
Tsepkalo’s husband Valery Tsepkalo, the previous Belarusian ambassador to the US, was not allowed to register as a candidate and had beforehand gone to Russia with their youngsters, fearing for his or her security after receiving threats of arrest.
CORRECTION: An earlier model of this story misstated the place Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is in self-imposed exile. She is in Lithuania.
Sebastian Shukla in London, Mikalai Anishchanka in Minsk, Denis Lapin in jap Ukraine and Mary Ilyushina in Moscow contributed to this text.
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