The regime wants to show its metal-hard consistency. “So it was and so it will be”, said the Tsar-time Interior Minister Makarov after the Lensk massacre.
The potential leaders of future massive protest are pre-emptively arrested, exactly the way it was done before the last year’s presidential elections. Well ahead of time, in order to intimidate the potential protest participants. Which, by the way, probably means, that there will be a show of the regime’s “tolerance” before the TV cameras on March, 25.
Young Front activists are being forced to stop their activities. They do not give in, whatever the regime does. The number of criminal cases against young activists will soon reach a dozen. A novelty in the modern Belarusian history.
Praliaskouski, the chief state ideologist, demanded not only to ban certain authors from school curriculum in Belarusian literature, but to erase the very term “the national Renaissance” from the school textbooks.
A semi-secret law draft popped out, which will probably introduce the censorship of the internet.
Lukashenka’s reaction to “Freedom Day” reveals the roots of his “fight for independence”.
The regime’s message is following: the repressive bureaucratic machine will work as usual. Resistance is senseless. We will reduce the size of the protest actions step-by-step by our pre-emptive measures.
The world will interpret the arrest in another way: Lukashenka is losing his nerve, he is afraid of massive rallies, he gives up the “western policy vector”, he works to earn the credit from Russia, the short period of thaw is over; but the opposition does not submit to the pressure, and even sometimes shows heroism — as the Young Front activists.
