Yauhen Afnahel: Authorities Did Not Notice One Very Important Point

People's protests have tens, if not hundreds, of leaders across the country.

One of the leaders of the Belarusian National Congress, coordinator of the European Belarus civil campaign Yauhen Afnahel said that to Charter97.org, commenting on another Mikalai Statkevich’s trial:

– The authorities keep making the same mistake before the autumn rallies, which they used to make before the spring protests of the opposition. They believe that having arrested two or three people, they can disrupt the rally, but, as experience shows, protests are held all the same. The arrest of famous people only makes the social participants of the event even more angry.

They have arrested Mikalai Statkevich – and it means that even more people will join the rally. So it was in the spring, so it will be now.

The thing is that the authorities have not noticed a very important point. If a couple of years ago, the opposition had a couple of leaders, now the people's protests have dozens, if not hundreds of leaders across the country.

The authorities, of course, will not be able to imprison or frighten all of them. I believe that the authorities have achieved only one thing by this current Statkevich’s arrest for another five days: more people will take to the Square. The March of Disgruntled Belarusians 2.0 will take place no matter what. And I am sure that a large number of Belarusians will take part in it, because the problems, which caused this protest rally, have not been solved.

And I would advise the authorities, instead of detaining Mikalai Statkevich or other opposition leaders, to think better about how to solve the problems, which they, the country, all of us are facing today: low salaries, lack of work, high prices, and so on.