These Three Women Stood Up To Europe's Longest-serving Dictator. Here's What Happened To Them

Within the weeks which have adopted, the nation has seen mass protests from citizens who believe the vote was rigged, violent police crackdowns on these protestors and, probably most disturbingly, three high-profile opposition figures — all of whom are girls — have disappeared from public view or fled Belarus.

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 Management, and aired on state TV.

“The disappearance of the candidates demonstrates past all doubt the brutality of this regime and the way essential it’s that the worldwide group would not lose curiosity within the appalling occasions which have unfolded for the reason that election,” Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the UK’s International Affairs Choose Committee, informed 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 have been both barred from operating or jailed.

Tikhanovskaya and Tsepkalo left Belarus within the rapid aftermath of the election, whereas Kolesnikova stayed and spoke out towards the end result. She informed CNN in an interview on August 13 that Lukashenko “has to simply accept that the Belarusian folks don’t love him and don’t love for him to remain 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 by way of the Alexandrovka checkpoint into Ukraine at four a.m., in line with Belarusian Border Management. Kolesnikova didn’t.

Ukrainian State Border Guard Service press officer Oleg Bokyo mentioned Kolesnikova “didn’t arrive on the checkpoint of Ukraine for border management.”

Chatting with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from her exile in Lithuania on Monday, Tikhanovskaya mentioned: “For the time being, members of the Coordinated Council I created are chased, kidnapped and harassed. And it is worrying me quite a bit, as a result of in the intervening time we nonetheless do not know the place Maria Kolesnikova is.”

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya

Tikhanovskaya, the primary opposition candidate in August’s disputed presidential election, left the country days later — after safety forces mounted a sweeping crackdown on protests over the end result.

Tikhanovskaya, who stood in for her husband as an opposition candidate after he was jailed, is now in neighboring Lithuania together with her youngsters, in line with her marketing campaign.

She had publicly questioned the results of the election, demanding a recount after the Central Election Fee introduced that she had solely received 9.9% of the vote.

“We don’t acknowledge the election outcomes,” she mentioned. “We have now seen actual protocols. We urge those that consider that their voice was stolen to not stay 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 occurred, her marketing campaign informed 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.

The household is now in exile in Poland. Tsepkalo told Reuters on August 19 that the “solely reliable President is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya … our most important purpose is simply to make Lukashenko go,” including that she wish to return to Belarus however understands the possibilities of her going to jail are “very, very excessive.”

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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