EU countries must not prioritise national interests over Belarus’s struggle for democracy

The international community must use what leverage they have, whether political or financial, to pressure the Lukashenko government, writes Ales Bialiatski

Police detain a man during an opposition rally in Minsk (TUT.BY/AFP via Getty Images)

Last week, on 17 September, armed men charged into Marfa Rabkova’s apartment in Minsk, seizing her computer, whatever cash they could find and taking her to the Akrestsina detention centre. Marfa already knew it well.  

Marfa coordinates volunteers for Viasna (which means “spring” in Belarusian), the human rights organisation I founded. She knew the detention centre because for over a month she had coordinated volunteers to bring food and warm clothing to the thousands of Belarusians detained for peacefully protesting the presidential election allegedly rigged by Alexander Lukashenko on 9 August. Even more importantly, she had been working with the same volunteers to document the beatings, denial of medical treatment and rapes of detained protesters that have taken place there. She was officially detained for financing a mass protest. Amnesty International has declared her a prisoner of conscience - their term for a political prisoner.  

The Belarusian authorities consider people like Marfa a threat. Her work with volunteer election observers to document election falsifications during the presidential election was a threat. Her work documenting abuses against protesters that could be used for an EU investigation was a threat. But on an even more basic level, her work supporting detainees was a threat. Lukashenko does not want a society of open solidarity, he wants one of fragmented fear.