DISINFO: Lithuania interferes in Belarusian affairs by granting diplomatic status to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya
SUMMARY
Lithuania interferes in the internal affairs of Belarus by giving to the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya the diplomatic status. Tsikhanouskaya has no support from the people of Belarus. All this happened in the context of Pratasevich's confession about his intermediation between conspirators and Tsikhanouskaya in the coup financed from abroad.
RESPONSE
A disinformation narrative linked to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Raman Pratasevich.
Lithuania granted official status to the Vilnius-based team of Belarus' exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. It was a symbolic step in the legal recognition of Belarusian civil society and its aspirations to implement democratic changes in its country. On the other hand, the Office of Tsikhanouskaya will not be considered as a diplomatic representation with its usual rights and privileges.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya became a symbol of the Belarusian fight for freedom against Lukashenka's regime. Large-scale protests began in Minsk on August 9, 2020, against the results of the presidential election and then spread to other cities. People revolted against election fraud and police violence towards thousands of rally participants.
According to statistical data and independent observers, the official result of the presidential election was heavily doctored. A joint monitoring effort by three NGOs demonstrates the scale of falsification based on election protocols from 1,310 polling stations across Belarus and concludes that the announced result (80% of votes cast for Lukashenka) is mathematically “impossible” (p. 7). An analysis by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper shows that excluding “anomalous” voting districts from the official tally would see Lukashenka's percentage drop to 43%, and Tsikhanouskaya's surge to 45%, in which case a second round would have to be called.
The confession of Pratasevich also is doubtful. Actually, Pratasevich’s appearance on the Belarusian state channel ONT on 31 May 2021 has been denounced as a forced confession by his relatives and the Belarusian opposition and by prominent human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Mistreatment marks were visible on Pratasevich’s wrists.
Pratasevich had been shown on 24 May 2021 in a previous ‘confession’ video with marks on his face that relatives and supporters suspected were the result of torture. This led the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville to express fears that “his appearance was not voluntary” and that his testimony could have been obtained under duress, which is prohibited under the Convention Against Torture. Forced confessions on camera are a recurrent practice of Belarusian authorities against opposition members.
The dubious narratives exposed in the testimony of Pratasevich are the same that pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have been spreading during the last year, including the alleged plans to overthrow Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka in a coup of which no evidence has ever been provided (see here for our previous debunk) and the portrayal of popular protests as a Western-backed colour revolution, with Russia as the ultimate target.
This is part of a wider disinformation campaign about the arrest of Raman Pratasevich at the Minsk airport after the forced landing of the Ryanair flight 4978 on which he was travelling from Athens to Vilnius. See the European Council conclusions on Belarus regarding the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.
See more examples of disinformation about Tsikhanouskaya (here and here) and Pratasevich (here and here).