THREAD: It’s been an ugly week for human rights and press freedom in the heart of Europe. Day after day, peaceful protesters against Belarus’s blatantly falsified presidential election were met with shocking violence. 1/
occrp.org/en/daily/12929…
occrp.org/en/daily/12929…
Nor were journalists spared. Dozens of reporters were beaten and arrested. Their families and colleagues were often left in agony, having no idea of where they were being kept or whether they had been injured. 2/
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occrp.org/en/daily/12932…
Here’s a translation of a Facebook post by Stas Ivashkevich, a journalist in the OCCRP network who was released earlier in the week. It’s plain to see that the authorities hardly even pretended to uphold the rule of law. 3/
And here’s our translation of a Russian journalist’s account of the brutal conditions in the country’s detention centers. Detainees were humiliated, repeatedly beaten, held in overcrowded cells, and left for many hours with little food or water. 4/ occrp.org/en/investigati…
Each day brought new shocking scenes. In this video, Belarusians gather around a Minsk detention center, hearing the cries of people being beaten inside. They chant: "Hang in there!" 5/
Meanwhile, Belarusian state television broadcast a chilling video of clearly injured, frightened young protesters facing interrogation. "Are we going to do more revolution?" asks an interrogator with a disguised voice. "Never again," they say. 6/
But Belarusians also kept finding new and creative ways to peacefully fight back. Thousands of women wearing white marched through the capital, calling for an end to the violence. 7/
Protest organizers called for an indefinite strike, and factory after factory joined in. 8/
Even the Belarus Philharmonic joined in. "They stole my voice," the signs say. 9/
With many foreign journalists failing to receive accreditation, the world followed events through Telegram channels, which Belarusians filled with photos and videos testifying to their experiences. They kept at it even as the authorities repeatedly shut down internet access. 10/
What happens next will depend, in part, on how the EU, the US, and other world powers respond. Belarus is a small country, and there’s no obvious "geopolitical" angle as there was with Ukraine’s Euromaidan. We and other journalists will cover the situation as it develops. 11/
This is translation of a Facebook post by Stas Ivashkevich, a journalist in the OCCRP network who was released earlier in the week. It’s plain to see that the authorities hardly even pretended to uphold the rule of law. (From tweet 3 in this thread). 
