Belarus’ 26-year-old dissident Roman Protasevich pleaded with 66-year-old President Alexander Lukashenko now facing charges of treason and insurrection. Protasevich was plucked from a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania May 26, forced to land in Minsk by the Belarus Air Force Russian-made Mig-29 flogger. While the Western world groaned, Lukashenko outsmarted the young blogger whose anti-Lukashenko website encouraged millions of Belarus citizens to rebel against Lukashenko’s repressive, totalitarian rule. Riding high on all the attention from the West, Protasevich thought he could foment revolution in Belarus without consequences. Called a “journalist” by the Western Press, Protasevich ran a social media website NEXTA Telegram channel, popular with pro-democracy advocates following developments in the Russian Federation.
Protasevich fashioned his website and blog after 44-year-old Russian dissident Alexi Navalny, whose clandestine organization has been shut down by the Russian government. Navalny says he was poisoned by the Kremlin last Aug., practically left for dead in a coma, and airlifted to Berlin for emergency medial treatment. Navalny spent four months in Germany recuperating before returning rot Russia against all advise to face immediate arrest Jan. 14, conviction and sentencing Feb. 1 to a Russian penal colony for two-and-a-half-years. Protasevich can’t claim to be poisoned by Lukashenko but he’s even in deeper trouble than Navalny. Protasevich faces a long prison sentence or possibly the death penalty for inciting violent riots in Belarus in Sept. 2020. Protasevich has also been charged with “grave crimes” in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, carrying a charge of terrorism.
Protasevich admitted in an interview he fomented unrest in Belarus to cause “mass unrest,” to change the government of Russian-backed Lukashenko. “I realized that many things Alexndr Grigoryevich is criticized for are just attempts to pressure him, and that in many moments he acted like . . . a man with balls of steel,” Protesevich said, according to Matthew Lxomore, RFERL’s Moscow correspondent. Prostasevich said he received strong support for his dissident activities from Poland and Lithuania. “Poland and Lithuania have an interest in supporting the protests in Belarus because it lets them make loud statements with the approval of the collective West,” said Protasevich. Trying a mea culpa before his expected trial for treason and insurrection, Protasevich hopes to get a lighter sentence, something doubtful when you consider the kind of crack down involved in Belarus.
Protasevich admitted to getting all the West’s media attention, playing games with Russian-backed countries, looking to loose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power. Navalny tried it in Russia, only to wind up behind bars, some questioning whether he’ll ever come out of the IK-2 penal colony.alive. Western officials like Brussels-based European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Joe Biden have recently sanctioned Putin for human rights abuses, including his treatment of Navalny. Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken have gone so far to demand Navalny’s release from prison. Western officials have made matters worse for Navalny and no Protashevich, interfering in Russia and Belaruss’ internal affairs. Protasevich is quaking in his boots now that he’s subjected to the hammer of Belarus law, realizing he faces subversion, insurrection and treason.
To Western journalists they put dissidents like Protasevich and Navalny on a pedestal, hoping to one day topple the government of Putin and Lukashenko. But the difference between Western journalists and dissidents is that they face real consequences for fomenting revolution. Protasevich told the press he regretted asking the Belarus public to organize resistance against the Lukashenko government. He denied any link to Lukashenko’s rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya who ran last year for president after her husband, Sergei. was arrested by Belarus authorities. Western press puts dissidents on a pedestal because they hope to undermine authoritarian regimes by focusing on human rights abuses. Now that the Western press lost one of their heroes, it’s time for them to see how naïve young people are exploited by the West. While the press remains free, dissidents like Navalny and Protasevich are jailed.
Whatever mea culpa Protasevich can muster won’t stop Lukashenko’s government from throwing the book at him. It’s beyond ironic that the U.S. persecuted former President Donald Trump and his followers of fomenting insurrection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) impeached Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the Jan. 6 riot. Whatever happened Jan. 6, it was anything but an insurrection. None of the protesters stormed the Capitol with guns a blazing, instead taking selfies while they vandalized government property. Putin will be the first to remind Biden that he didn’t judge Democrats overreaction to the Jan. 6 riot. Impeaching a sitting president for delivering a speech to which he’s entitled under the First Amendment makes you wonder if Democrats and the media take free speech seriously.
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