Belarus opposition figure Maxim Znak taken from office by masked men
Source: The Guardian
Belarus opposition figure Maxim Znak taken from office by masked men
Lawyer was one of few remaining leading members of coordination council still free
Luke Harding
Wed 9 Sep 2020 10.38 BST
Authorities in Belarus have arrested one of the last leading members of an opposition council still free in the country and attempted to enter the Minsk apartment of the Nobel prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich.
Unidentified men in ski masks on Wednesday seized Maxim Znak from the office of the countrys opposition coordination council and dragged him out of the building. His associate, Gleb German, said Znak, a lawyer and a member of the bodys presidium, had time to text message masks before his phone was grabbed.
Alexievich is now the only member of the councils seven-person leadership body not in prison or in exile. She said unknown men rang her bell at about 9am local time. It was unclear if they had come to take her away. Alexievich later allowed EU diplomats into her home and spoke to journalists.
She said her like-minded friends from the presidium were now either behind bars or had been thrown out of the country. Znak was the last one, she said. She suggested, however, that the brutal tactics of Belaruss president, Alexander Lukashenko, to kidnap the best of us would not work and that the protest movement would continue.
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Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/09/belarus-opposition-figure-maxim-znak-taken-from-office-by-masked-men