In Lithuania, the Belarusian diaspora reflects on the future of their country
Belarusian opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya at a rally in Brussels in December 2020 (illustrative image).
Getty Images - Thierry Monasse
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Around 100 Belarusians from abroad gathered in Vilnius at the weekend around the opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya to discuss the future of their country.
A little over a year ago, Alexander Lukashenko was fraudulently re-elected and since then the citizen protest has been violently repressed.
Nearly 700 opponents are imprisoned in Belarus and tens of thousands of Belarusians have left their country.
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With our correspondent in Vilnius,
Marielle Vitureau
How to exert economic pressure to bring down President Lukashenko, whose
re-election just over a year ago
was contested by tens of thousands of people in the streets for weeks?
How to support Belarusian refugees?
How to keep the question of Belarus on the agenda of governments?
"
Belarusians are counting on us a lot
"
The diaspora sought to answer these questions to continue the fight against Alexander Lukashenko.
Because since 2020, the protest movement has been gradually put down, with thousands of arrests, forced exiles and imprisonments of opponents, media officials and NGOs.
And for Alice Syrakvash, co-president of the Belarusian community in Paris, the role of the diaspora is essential.
“
Belarusians rely on us a lot to express what they cannot express,
” she explains.
For Belarusians, there are 50 Belarusian people who demonstrate for them in Paris, it touches them.
It helps them to know that there are people who don't stop.
"
People's embassies
In Paris, for example, a conference will be held in mid-October on the situation of journalists in Belarus.
People's embassies are being set up in different countries.
Other concrete projects will see the light of day.
Franak Viaciorka, adviser to
Svetlana Tikhanovskaia
, the Belarusian opponent in exile, details one.
"
In the field of assistance, we will use cryptocurrencies to provide support to strike committees, cyberpartisans, activists who continue to resist in Belarus
."
All of them have only one goal: new free and democratic elections.
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