Belarus officials try to stem protests, jailing strike leader
KYIV, Ukraine — Belarus’ authorities on Monday handed a jail sentence to a factory strike organizer and detained a leading opposition activist, part of a methodical effort to stifle weeks of protests against the country’s authoritarian leader after an election the opposition says was rigged.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the nation with an iron fist for 26 years, has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and rejected the European Union’s offers of mediation. After a ferocious crackdown on demonstrators in the first days after the Aug. 9 presidential vote that caused international outrage, his government has avoided largescale violence against demonstrators and switched to threats and the selective jailing of activists.
Anatoly Bokun, who leads the strike committee at Belaruskali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, was detained by police Monday sentenced to 15 days in jail on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest. The factory, which accounts for a fifth of the world’s potash fertilizer output, is the nation’s top cash- earner.
Belaruskali strike committee spokesperson Gleb Sandras said authorities managed to halt a strike at the factory that began two weeks ago and that all its potash mines are now working. He said agents of Belarus’ State Security Committee, which still goes by the Soviet- era name KGB, pressured workers to end the strike.
“KGB agents have inundated the factory, tracking down the most active workers and using various means of pressure,” Mr.
Sandras said. “The authorities have powerful economic instruments. They are blackmailing workers with mass dismissals.”
Strikes at Belaruskali and many other leading industrial plants have cast an unprecedented challenge to Mr. Lukashenko, who has kept the bulk of the economy in state hands and relies on blue- collar workers as his main support base.
Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Nazarov acknowledged Monday that the strikes posed a problem but said all major industrial plants have resumed normal operations.
Mr. Bokun’s detention follows the arrests of strike leaders at two other major industrial plants in Minsk, the country’s capital, last week. The organizer of a strike at the Grodno Azot, a major producer of nitrogen fertilizers, fled to Poland to escape detention.
Seeking to stem the protests, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council created to negotiate a transition of power, accusing its members of undermining the country’s security.
Last week, Belarusian courts handed 10- day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others for questioning, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature. Council member Lilia Vlasova was detained Monday.
“This is the government’s response to our peaceful actions and offers of dialogue,” council member Maria Kolesnikova said. “It means that protests will grow.‘‘
On Monday, Mr. Lukashenko ordered the dismissal of Belarus’ ambassador to Spain, Pavel Pustavy, who in a Facebook post called for a recount of the election and criticized the beating of peaceful demonstrators. Belarus earlier dismissed its ambassadors to Slovakia and India for expressing support for the protesters.
Belarusian authorities on Monday also denied entry to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the 74- year- old archbishop of Minsk and Mohilev, keeping him waiting for hours on the border before turning him back to Poland. Last week, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz strongly criticized the Belarusian police.