Natallia Radzina: Pevchikh's Investigation Reminds Frau A's Revelations

A sense of déjà vu.

Chief editor of the Charter97.org website Natallia Radzina spoke on the parallels in Belarusian and Russian investigations:

“The situation with the so-called FBK investigation reminded me of the story of the KGB Frau A's “investigation” known to most Belarusians. It happened during the mass protests of Belarusians against the “law on parasites” in 2017. Then, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets across the country. The authorities feared that on March 25, the Freedom Day, dozens of thousands of people would take part in the demonstrations.

Then Frau A. appeared on Belarusian propaganda channels — allegedly a citizen of Belarus, who had been living in Germany for a long time, who accused my friends from the European Belarus campaign, the leader of the Belarusian National Congress Mikalai Statkevich and me personally of organizing mass riots on March 25, training militants in Poland and Ukraine and preparing explosions during a demonstration in Minsk. Allegedly, her French friend Monsieur Michel gave her this information.

The authorities repeatedly showed the story with Frau A. on television and even made a special issue of the newspaper ”Soviet Byelorussia”, which was scattered in mailboxes all over Minsk.

At the same time, special forces units of the security police arrested dozens of participants of the Belarusian Youth Patriotic Club, which was led by ”nationalists” from the organization “White Legion”.

On the one hand, most Belarusians laughed at this Frau A., Monsieur Michel and the delirium of Lukashenka's propagandists. But on the other hand, my friends, dozens of arrested activists and I were not laughing. We were declared terrorists preparing mass murders in Minsk without trial. At the same time, a propaganda campaign against Charter’97 and European Belarus was launched by pseudo-opposition curs, the purpose of which was to denigrate our reputation, and a few months later the Charter.org website was blocked in Belarus allegedly due to a “threat to national security”.

Now, watching the campaign of persecution of the Israeli philanthropist and public figure Leonid Nevzlin, I cannot shake off the feeling of déjà vu. It’s all the same: Ms. Pevchikh with accusations in the style of Frau A., a “fixer” from the FSB, as a source of information surpassing even Monsieur Michel, a clearly coordinated propaganda campaign on Russia Today and the FBK channels and other pseudo-opposition Russian media. I agree with the statement of the PACE Special Rapporteur on Russian Democratic Forces Eerik-Niiles Kross that the investigation into the attack on one of the FBK leaders Leonid Volkov should be handled by the investigative bodies of Lithuania and Poland.

I suggest watching the propaganda film “White Legion, Black Souls” produced by Belarusian television and comparing it with the “investigation” of Pevchikh. You will see how similar these products are.

By the way, all those arrested then, without receiving any apologies, were released after just over three months, and Lukashenka's prosecutor's office dropped the case on the preparation of mass riots a year later.

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