« on: June 25, 2024, 06:22:08 am »
https://cardinalnews.org/2024/06/25/virginia-tech-student-on-trial-in-belarus-charged-with-plotting-to-overthrow-government/A Virginia Tech student is on trial in Belarus, charged with plotting to overthrow the government.
Fortunately for her, she’s not there.
Katsiaryna Shmatsina, a doctoral student at Tech, is one of 20 Belarusian political analysts — all now outside the country — who are being tried in absentia as part of what the Associated Press calls a “yearslong crackdown on dissent in the country” that started first with political activists and now has spread to scholars who comment on politics.
Shmatsina is lucky to be living in Alexandria and not sitting in a prison cell in Minsk: She fled the country on a few hours’ notice and wasn’t completely sure she’d make it until she walked out of the airport in Kyiv, Ukraine, with nothing more than a carry-on bag, an extra pair of shoes and no plan for what to do next.
Her story highlights how the methods of the old Soviet regime remain in place in Belarus, a nation of 9.1 million people between Russia and Poland that is essentially a Russian satellite state governed for the past 30 years by Alexander Lukashenko — often called “Europe’s last dictator.”
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Logged
aka "nasty degenerate SOB," "worst of the worst at Free Republic," "Garbage Troll," "Neocon Warmonger," "Filthy Piece of Trash," "damn $#%$#@!," "Silly f'er," "POS," "war pig," "neocon scumbag," "insignificant little ankle nipper," "@ss-clown," "neocuck," "termite," "Uniparty Deep stater," "Never Trump sack of dog feces," "avid Bidenista," "filthy Ukrainian," "war whore," "fricking chump," "psychopathic POS," "depraved SOB," "Never Trump Moron," "Lazarus," and "sock puppet."
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ---George Orwell
