Update on Kolesnikova

Coming to a government in your area if Trump and the GOP aren't turned out in November.

The Belarus opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova has said security officers put a bag over her head and threatened to kill her when they tried to forcibly deport her to Ukraine earlier this week, according to a complaint filed by her lawyer.

[...]

She has emerged as a hero for the protest movement trying to end Lukashenko’s 26-year rule, and a chief target for the authorities who have detained her over accusations of an illegal attempt to seize power in the former Soviet republic.

She said in her statement that she had genuinely feared for her life during the failed deportation attempt.

“In particular it was stated that if I did not voluntarily leave the Republic of Belarus, I would be taken out anyway, alive or in bits. There were also threats to imprison me for up to 25 years,” Kolesnikova said.

She was told there would be problems for her while she was held under guard or in jail.

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Kolesnikova’s complaint included the names and ranks of individual officers of the KGB and the organised crime agency whom she accuses of threatening her, and said she would be able to identify them.

She is now being held in the capital, Minsk, where Kazak said she was being questioned on Thursday. Kazak saw her client at a pre-trial detention centre on Wednesday and said she had bruises on her body.

  Guardian

Perhaps from being shoved out of the car, as was previously reported.

In the month since the disputed election, nearly all the opposition’s key leaders have been arrested, fled or been forced to leave the country.

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Lukashenko denies rigging the 9 August election, which official results said he won by a landslide, and has cracked down on protesters demanding his resignation. He has refused to talk to the opposition, saying it is bent on wrecking the country.

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Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, retains the support of his key ally, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.