On Monday, the 10th of August, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya lodged an official complaint with Belarus election authorities over the results. She spend several hours at the committee alone after which she decided to leave the country. It is suspected she was actually detained there. Some Belarus news outlets reported that Tikhanovskaya had agreed to be taken out of Belarus by authorities so that her campaign manager, Maria Moroz, could be released after she was detained. It is confirmed that they left the country together.
In a video apparently recorded before she left Belarus, reading from script, Tikhanovskaya calls on Belarusians to accept Lukashenko’s “victory” and stop protesting. In the second YouTube video address to supporters, Svetlana said her decision to leave was taken completely independently and that she did it for her children.
Lithuania’s foreign affairs minister, Linas Linkevicius, announced on Tuesday, the 11th of August, that Tikhanovskaya was now in Lithuania and was safe. Despite her call for ending the protests, clashes between protesters and police continued. There have been numerous reports of police brutality. One protester has died and 200 others have been wounded and thousands more detained.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
