Please, Tumblr community, be so kind and pray for Belarus tomorrow, August 9th, 2020.
If you don’t know what’s going on, I’ll try and briefly describe the situation.
We are having presidential election.
Our current president is Alexander Lukashenko. He has been a president for 26 years, here’s what led to that:
- He conducted a referendum to change the constitution so that president of Belarus can run for as many terms as they want.
- He has been steadily destroying all the political opposition for all the 26 years of his regiment (mostly putting them into jail and/or forcing them to leave the country).
- The election of 1994, when he was elected, was the last honest and fair election in history of Belarus. After that, although election is held once in 5 years, each time multiple violations of the process are reported. Violations such as literally making up numbers. The further the more of this, and Lukashenko inevitably wins.
By now Belarusians are sick and tired of him to the degree, where change seems inevitable. And it really seems that we can do it this time. Lukashenko has been restless, he put all the major alternative candidates in prison. He put up the police and army to beating up and arresting innocent people, who were peacefully protesting on the streets, riding bikes (this one happened just yesterday), going home from work or waiting in queues to by t-shirts with Belarusian symbols. Two days ago two young men were put into jail for 10 days for putting on a song that is deemed undesirable on a pro-government city event.
We have a strong alternative candidate, her name is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. We believe in her and support her, that much can be judged by tens of thousands of people who came to her rallies all over Belarus. Even those Belarusians who feel skeptical about her, recognize her as a symbol of a long-awaited change. People feel united like never before.
Tomorrow is the election day. We don’t want any blood, we don’t want war. We want peacefully elect a new president. Lukashenko threatens us, degrades us, tells that he will never give Belarus to anyone, as though it is his own. And most likely he will put all kinds of armed forces to beat up people on the streets tomorrow.
Most likely tomorrow Internet connection will be unavailable for all the Minsk citizens, along with landline phones and cellular connection. That will be done by the government, so that people have harder time protecting themselves not being able to tell anyone what is happening to them. So I’m telling you now. Please pray for us.
I realize that this post must seem vague, but please understand that it’s very hard for me to talk about all the horror that is happening in my country to me, to my friends, to people who I know in person and to people who I’ve never met. It’s discouraging, disgusting and heartbreaking. It took me a lot of strength just to write this post.
So please give a thought about us tomorrow. And maybe we will win.