Belarusian TV Questions Dissident as Opposition Cries Foul

(Bloomberg) -- Belarusian state television showed an interview with a jailed dissident confessing again to alleged crimes and praising President Alexander Lukashenko in what opponents said was the regime’s latest use of coerced recordings of imprisoned critics.

State-controlled ONT channel broadcast an hour-long interview with Raman Pratasevich Thursday in which he admitted organizing protests and said he “absolutely respected” the president.

“The contents of these videos can’t be taken seriously,” Barys Haretski, the spokesman for the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said by phone from Minsk. “We don’t know about the conditions in which Pratasevich is held, what he is being threatened with and what he may have been promised while he faces severe punishment.”

Pratasevich was arrested last month together with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega after Belarus diverted their flight from Greece to Lithuania. He may face as much as 15 years in prison for his role in the unrest that rocked the country after last year’s disputed election.

He has been shown several times by state media since the plane was grounded due to an alleged bomb threat. His parents said he appeared to have been beaten in one of the previous videos, where he confessed in a monotone voice to organizing protests in the capital.

Pratasevich’s lawyer Inessa Olenskaya said she hasn’t been able to see to her client.

Over the past year, the Interior Ministry’s YouTube channel posted dozens of confession videos from arrested opposition activists. Human Rights Watch has said it documented the use of systematic beatings and torture following the election last August, in which Lukashenko claimed to win a sixth term in a landslide.

“Such videos are a well-known practice that the regime uses in an attempt to influence inexperienced viewers and humiliate opponents,” said a colleague of Pratasevich’s who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

The arrest of Pratasevich and the grounding of the plane carrying him continued to roil relations with other nations. The U.S. said Belarus has indicated it will impose new restrictions on U.S. diplomats in the country starting June 13.

“The Belarusian authorities have brought our relationship to this point, through relentless and intensifying repression against their citizens,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said during a briefing Thursday in Washington. “We’re disappointed, to put it mildly, to be where we are now. But we’ll continue to work with our allies and our partners to promote our shared interests.”

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