Abducted Belarus opposition leader detained amid crackdown

Bloomberg

Belarus said Maria Kalesnikava, one of the Belarusian opposition’s top organisers, was detained at the border with Ukraine after being reported missing as President Alexander Lukashenko targets leaders of month-long protests against his 26-year rule.
Two of Kalesnikava’s colleagues on the united opposition’s coordinating council, spokesman Anton Radniankou and its executive secretary Ivan Krautsou, crossed into Ukraine, leaving Kalesnikava in Belarus, the state news service Belta reported, citing the head of the nation’s border service.
Ukrainian officials gave a different version of events, saying Belarus sought to expel the three activists. Kalesnikava didn’t show up at the crossing, the Ukrainian border service said in a website statement.
“This wasn’t a voluntary exit, it was a forced expulsion,” Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko said on Facebook. Kalesnikava remained in Belarus because “this brave woman took actions” to prevent her deportation, he said.
“All responsibility for her life and health” rests with Lukashenko, he said.
Rallies in the country’s capital swelled to about 100,0000 people, a month after Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in the August 9 presidential election to extend his rule for a sixth term.
Several other activists have said they were forced to flee the country in recent days under threats from law enforcement and a renewed police crackdown against protesters.
“Peaceful actions all across Belarus since August 9 and representing the view of the majority of people are so massive that authorities have begun actively to use methods of terror in order to suppress them,” the
coordinating council said on its website after reporting that Kalesnikava, Randiankou and Kraustou had been abducted by unknown people in the capital, Minsk.
Kalesnikava tore up her passport to prevent Belarusian border guards from expelling her from the country, the Interfax news service reported, citing a source it didn’t identify.
Kalesnikava said earlier that she wouldn’t leave Belarus by choice, Maksim Znak, a lawyer and council member, said by phone. There is still no contact with any of the three, he said.
“I am happy that Masha played out her clever plans and emerged as the victor in this situation,” Znak said in a Facebook post.