Maria Kolesnikova, Belarusian opposition leader, was kidnapped in Minsk on the morning of Sept. 7.
A witness told Tut.by, a Belarusian media outlet, that a group of unknown men in civilian clothes forcefully put Kolesnikova into a minivan and left in an unknown direction. The incident happened around 10:05 a.m. near the National Art Museum in the center of Minsk.
“I heard the sound of the phone hitting the asphalt, some kind of stamping, I turned around and saw people in civilian clothes and in masks pushing Maria into a minivan,” the witness told the website.
Meanwhile, some media reported that Kolesnikova was “detained” by the Belarusian authorities.
The press secretary of the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council, Anton Rodnekov, confirmed for Tut.by that Kolesnikova indeed was in the center of Minsk alone in the morning. Rodnekov started figuring out the details of Kolesnikova’s disappearance, but an hour later his phone stopped responding.
A member of the Coordination Council, Maxim Znak, also told Tut.by that he is unaware of the whereabouts of Kolesnikova and Rodnekov, and is also unable to contact them. Znak also said that he can’t get in touch with another member of the council, Maxim Bogretsov, as well as the executive secretary of the council Ivan Kravtsov.
The whereabouts of Kolesnikova and Rodnekov remain unknown.
Kolesnikova is one of the leaders of the anti-government protests which started in Belarus in response to the Aug. 9 presidential election when it was announced that dictator Alexander Lukashenko won the presidency for the sixth time. Lukashenko’s regime attempted to crush the protests, detaining and beating up thousands of protesters and regular citizens.
Kolesnikova is also an active member of the newly-formed Coordination Council, created to peacefully transfer the presidential powers from Lukashenko to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition candidate who, the protesters insist, won the election. Tikhanovskaya ran after her husband, a blogger and opposition politician Sergey Tikhanovskiy, was arrested.
Before her involvement with the council, Kolesnikova was the campaign chief of Viktor Babariko, another key opponent of Lukashenko, who was projected to win in the presidential race. As a part of Lukashenko’s crackdown of the opposition, Babariko and his son were arrested in June on suspicion of financial crimes.
After his arrest, Kolesnikova joined forces with Tikhanovskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo, the wife of another key opponent of Lukashenko who had to leave Belarus for fear of persecution. The trio eventually became the symbol of the public outcry for change, leading the opposition before the election day.
