EU diplomats at Belarus Nobel winner’s home to prevent arrest

Nobel prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich accused the authorities in Belarus of terrorising their own people on Wednesday as another opposition politician was detained by masked men. Maxim Znak was the latest figure to be seized in a systematic campaign by the government of President Alexander Lukashenko to round up leaders of a protest movement.
“What is happening is terror against the people,” said Alexievich, who summoned supporters to her home. “We have to unite and not give up our intentions,” she said. In a show of solidarity with Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, diplomats from at least seven European countries — Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden — joined her in her flat. Lithuania said the envoys’ aim was partly to protect the author from abuse.
Znak was detained two days after another opposition leader, Maria Kolesnikova, was snatched in the street by masked men. Znak’s detention leaves Alexievich as the last member of the opposition’s Coordination Council still active inside Belarus.