Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a potential presidential candidate, has published an open letter with demands to the Interior Ministry and TV channel Belarus 1. The text was published in the TV-channel Country for Life.
In the letter, Svyatlana Tikhanouskaya recalls the events in Hrodna on May 29th that resulted in her husband, Syarhei Tsikhanouski, and other citizens of Belarus getting detained.
“I regard this provocation and the subsequent illegal detention and initiation of criminal proceedings against the head of my initiative group as a flagrant attempt by interested parties to prevent me from exercising my electoral rights,” Mrs Tsikhanouskaya wrote.
In addition, the potential presidential candidate highlighted the fact that in the evening of May 29th, the TV channel Belarus 1 showed a story that “contains lies and obvious distortion of facts due to deliberately pretentious presentation of information and parts of video segments”.
Mrs Tsikhanouskaya stressed that she’d sent statements regarding these violations to the appropriate authorities and is now waiting for a reaction. In particular, she expects the Interior Ministry to do the following:
- ensure security at legal pickets and protect members of the initiative group from provocation;
- stop the criminal prosecution of Syarhei Tsikhanousky and other innocent people;
- identify the women who organized the provocation on May 29th in Hrodna and bring them to justice.
Also, Mrs Tsikhanouskaya wants the TV channel Belarus 1 to refute the wrongful information.
