Translated material
KGB of Belarus is fighting with the Internet
Deficiency and repression go hand in hand
The KGB of Belarus closed the Future. Lukashenko’s regime switches to strict savings: from June 13, the consumption of the fuel of official transport of the government and the administration of the President of Belarus decided to be reduced by half. Another presidential decree by 10-12% has the prices of gas -expensive gasoline every day. And at the same time the arrests of Internet activists began. As a deficit and repression, they go hand in hand in a fraternal country - on the spot I found out The New Times
“Let's agree: from tomorrow morning there will be not 5200–5100 (Belarusian rubles = 29 Russian rubles), but a maximum of 4,500 (23 Russian rubles),” Lukashenko proclaimed at a meeting on economics on June 8. “So you can go and declare everyone: 4500 is the maximum, I take the most expensive gasoline.” Of course, you can "agree" with subordinates, but with the economy how? The treasury is empty, there is no currency, the shelves are empty, prices are rising around the entire perimeter of the consumer basket. Hopes for external loans were exhausted. Russia, through the Evrazes anti -crisis fund, promised to damage $ 3 billion. But when the first tranche would specifically arrive, it is still unclear. Lukashenko is clearly nervous. And there is why. The fact that the opposition politicians did not succeed for a long time made Lukanomik - she woke Belarusians.
"Tired!" On the eve of the presidential decision on reducing gas prices at the main transport artery of Minsk, Independence Avenue, an unusual sight could be observed: the passing of the one and a half hundred cars was blocked, everything is drowning in the gula of the Clarus. “Tired! Not only is it expensive, you will not refuel it everywhere, ”the 35-year-old Sergey, the owner of a modest Lada-fame, is indignant. He and other motorists reached the Stop gasoline campaign. In early June, fuel prices jumped for the fourth time since the beginning of the year, and immediately 31%. Until the last decree Lukashenko, a liter of the cheapest AI-92 and diesel fuel in the country cost about 29 rubles in terms of Russian money
* * The average salary in Belarus, according to May 2011, is about BYR 1 565,000, or $ 520, that is, about 14,500 rubles. . At the same time, no more than 25 liters are poured into one passenger car. The evacuators carefully broke through the participants of the action, but thanks to a skillfully organized protesting cork, they failed to take out a single car.
Absolutely amorphous entrepreneurs gathered to go on strike - their action should take place on June 15 in the Minsk market "Robin". “Ipashniks”, individual entrepreneurs, will go to work, but defiantly will not open their “points” - in protest against the administration’s decision to evict them from the first floor of the market. Unknown persons are already calling businessmen with a proposal to "think well, otherwise you can also lose bread."
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| After June 8, the price tags at the Belarusian gas stations brought into line with the presidential instructions: for the most expensive gasoline - BYR 4500 |
The response on the response of the authorities increases the pressure on all dissatisfied. Lawyers who defended the opposition, arrested and convicted after December 19, 2010, began to actively check and deprive licenses. The largest human rights organization in the country - the Belarusian Helsinki Committee - threatens the closure: it has already received a second warning from the Ministry of Justice. The authorities insist: lawyers were engaged in monetary fraud and are now obliged to pay 200 million rubles ($ 40 thousand). “The organization does not have that kind of money,” said Oleg Gulak, chairman of the BHC, the New Times. And on June 14, a closed court session will be held, at which the journalist of the Polish “newspaper of the Vygroys” by Andrzej Pogout will be judged, who has been in the Grodno pre -trial detention center for two months now
* The appeal of the editorial office of the “newspapers of the Vygroys” to the authorities of Belarus with a request to release the journalist The New Times in No. 13 of April 11, 2011. . For “slander for the president” he faces from 2 to 4 years in prison. The KGB spent the first day even with the lawyer of the Protestant Church "New Life" Sergei Lukanin. He repeatedly criticized power, and now the Chekists decided to remind him that he was facing a criminal prosecution for “discrediting Belarus”.
Not “VKontakte” protest moods in society, especially among young people, spilled out primarily on the Internet. The Belarusian KGB decided to close two large groups on the VKontakte social network - “We are for the Great Belarus” and “The movement of the future”. On June 5, the organizer and moderator of the first group was detained in his apartment in Minsk-the 21-year-old Minsk student Sergey Pavlyukevich, who collected 120 thousand users. At first, the Chekists tried to put pressure on his mother: they demanded that she forbid her son to use the Internet. Then they called Sergei himself for interrogation, were interested in why he started it all. After that, they went into the group from the Pavlyukevich account and cleaned it. “They even tried to remove my questionnaire, but couldn’t,” said Sergey The New Times literally a few days before the visit of guests from the KGB. What problems can be for counteracting the Belarusian authorities, he knows firsthand: for participating in the protest rally on December 19, he had to stay in the insulator for 10 days. Then he was expelled from the institute. And now they are hastily sent to the army.
On June 6, the 22-year-old Dmitry Nefedov was arrested, who supervised the “Movement of the Future” group on the network-211 thousand people managed to register in it. He is sincerely convinced that the revolution in Belarus can be performed according to the Egyptian or Tunisian scenario - both in Egypt and Tunisia, social networks played a huge role in the overthrow of autocratic regimes. The guy called on all members of the group once a week to gather on the main square of his city and just communicate. No flags and banners are safer. According to Nefedov, for a month or two, the number of such “quiet protesters” should have grown to some kind of critical value, and then “one could proceed to more active actions”. The Chekists had already come to the house to Nefedov: they took the computer, and at the activist himself drew up an administrative protocol: he, they say, cursed obscenities during the search. On June 7, when trying to go to Poland, Belarusian border guards detained another active user of social networks - Ivan Stasyuk. He was immediately handed over to the KGB operatives. Unlike the previous two detainees, Stasyuk was released after a preventive conversation. Some other Belarusian administrators of VKontakte groups managed to avoid detention. So, Andrei Tkachev, the owner of the group “Tired of this Lukashenko”, uniting over 17 thousand users, moved to a conspiracy apartment and supposedly continues to administer the group from there.
Will it be tired? In addition to gasoline in the country, meat also rose - by 10%. And on June 8, by 30-60%, depending on the brands, it increased in price and cigarettes. There have been interruptions with their supplies recently: tobacco companies complained that they did not have currency in order to provide the supply of raw materials from abroad. They could not raise prices for their products either: prices for alcohol and tobacco in Belarus are regulated by the state. The largest private manufacturer of Tabak-Invest cigarettes suspended production and sent employees to unlimited leave. The New Times correspondent explained at the enterprise: “Non -conformity with the currency does not make it clear whether it is profitable to engage in the production and sale of cigarettes now. It’s better to wait until everything is tired. ” “Power is at a loss,” the independent economist Sergei Chaly explains in an interview with The New Times, “the situation is difficult to control.” One thing is clear: Lukashenko is most afraid of a folk riot.
Anti -crisis fund "Evrazes"
He announced his readiness to allocate $ 3 billion in Belarus in the next three years. 1.2 billion will enter Minsk this year. In addition, Belarus expects to receive another loan from the IMF this fall, which, in exchange, according to experts, may require improving the work of foreign investors.