The official election campaign, for lack of better words, has begun. This week saw the first of two half-hour long televised addresses allowed each candidate. Interestingly, Moscow's pseudo-democratic puppet Aleksandr Kozulin stood out as the most radical opponent of Lukashenko, tearing a newspaper with the president's picture in it. The united opposition's Aleksandr Milinkevich stayed his thoughtful self.
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Meanwhile, throughout the country house searches were conducted in opposition activist's homes, some of the legally allowed campaign materials for Milinkevich was confiscated by police, and four people were arrested by the KGB. They are now being held under suspicion for breaking the second part of article 193 of the Belarusian Criminal Code. Under this legislation, which is part of the politically repressive amendments introduced at the end of last year, they can face up to two years of imprisonment for participating in non-registered organisations. The organisations in question are Partnership, which conducted election monitoring during the parliamentary elections and referendum of 2004, and the Movement of Andrey Klimov, named after its imprisoned leader.
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Yesterday, I received a phone call from Gunnel Arbin, a Swedish journalist who travelled to Belarus several times during the 1990s, and had just returned from her first visit in six years. She was under strong impression from what she had seen. Gunnel had met the lawyer of the detained activists, Vera Stremkovskaya, who told her how their parents wanted her to step away from the case because they are afraid that she is considered to controversial. This may not be necessary, however, because the KGB has now illegally denied Stremkovskaya to meet with her clients anyway.
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But Gunnel had also found that the legal amendments passed last year are affecting not only the political sphere. In the ambition of writing an article on the social thematic, she had contacted the Belarusian branch of the Red Cross, which she wanted to ask about the situation for homeless people in Belarus. The humanitarian workers, however, told her that there are no homeless people in Belarus because the state provides so well for everyone. So instead, she managed to get in touch with a catholic parish, who were actually helping homeless people out. But the Catholics were only willing to tell Gunnel about this on the condition that she would not reveal their names in her article. The reason was another new article of the criminal code, the one about "discrediting" Belarus in foreign media, a crime which can also render imprisonment.
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Finally, at the airport on her way home, Gunnel was temporarily detained by the border guards who questioned her and searched her luggage for some 45 minutes before two phone calls from the Swedish honorary consul, Lars Karman, finally got her off the hook and on the plane home.
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Election campaign or not, Gunnel's final verdict on this trip to Belarus may be valid for a long time to come. She told me that never before had she seen people there so afraid.
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PS. The main character of one of my earlier posts, Seppo Isotalo, recently left a brief comment there which you can find if you go back and look at the bottom of the page. Clicking his signature opens his website, containing among other things the old article shown below. The titel reads: "The fixer Seppo - trusts the KGB over the Supreme Commander"
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