FAZ: Cyber-Partisans Expose Lukashenka

The Belarusian protest is getting more and more symbols of victory.

A stalemate emerged in Belarus six weeks after the beginning of a wave of protests against Lukashenka's dictatorship. No side can make a decisive breakthrough. Meanwhile, the protest is gaining more and more symbols. For example, violence against grace: during the Saturday "women's marches" in Minsk, masked law enforcers forced women dressed in the colours of the protest movement and carrying flowers and white-red-white flags in groups, pulled out some of them and put them in paddy wagons, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (translated by inosmi.ru) writes.

Lukashenka's people in a dark green uniform with no insignia or black uniform with the inscription "ОМОН" (riot police) on their backs; they do not show any identity documents. When brave participants of "women's marches" rip black balaclavas off men, one can see young, beardless faces and shaved heads. This "revelation" also makes sense for demonstrators: the victory of the allegedly weaker, but fearless over the stronger and cowardly men.

Protest in carnival masks

In the meantime, the "revelation" continues on the Internet. On Saturday night, the opposition media Nexta published the data of 1003 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: names, dates of birth, stations, ranks. Thank the "cyber partisans" these data (unverified) became available, wrote Nexta Telegram channel. "No one will remain anonymous even underneath the neck face mask".

The data on seven officers of the anti-terrorist unit, which was used against demonstrators and journalists at the violence height in August, are also made public. The practice of data publication will continue. On Sunday, the Nexta portal reported that "honest" people would be removed from the database to take a position in the law enforcement agencies of the new Belarus. That was a response to the request of 200 employees of the Interior Ministry to remove them from the list.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who impugned Lukashenka's victory in the August presidential election and had to leave for Lithuania, wrote on Saturday that security officials had to take into account that "the Belarusians are ready to de-anonymize those who implement criminal orders".

Some participants of the Saturday rallies wore white-red-white carnival masks or pink nets over their heads, thus playing up the theme of black masks of law enforcers. Many protesters expect a tribunal, and the perpetrators, including Lukashenka, will one day be brought to justice for the violence.