A Theater of Abuses in Post-Election Belarus

Since Sunday's controversial presidential election in the ex-Soviet republic of Belarus, where incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka pronounced himself the winner, a wave of human rights violations has been hitting opposition voices in the country (like it wasn't bad enough in the first place). Among the silenced are Nikolai Khalezin and Natalia Kolyada, the founding couple of Belarus Free Theater who – according to The New York Times – "are now in hiding" after the arrest of their colleagues. When my colleague phoned the Embassy of Belarus in Washington D.C. for a response on the Times report, she was told that the Embassy doesn't comment on foreign newspaper content. Here are two other questions that the Belarus government doesn't want to be asked: – Why have seven of the nine opposition presidential candidates been detained along with as many as 500 peaceful demonstrators, opposition activists, human rights defenders and journalists, many of whom were beaten by riot police? – Why was there no autopsy to investigate the allegedly suicidal death of Aleh Byabebin, founder of the unofficial news website Charter'97, who had just joined the campaign team of presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov?

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