AP: “Belarusian authorities long ago removed the makeshift memorial to a protester shot by police at the start of last year’s massive protests against the country’s autocratic president, replacing flowers and placards with a garbage can. Alexander Taraikovsky died as protests swelled, a day after President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in the Aug. 9, 2020, presidential vote that the opposition denounced as rigged. Police dispersed the peaceful demonstrators with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs in a stunningly brutal crackdown.”

“Lukashenko earned the nickname of ‘Europe’s last dictator’ in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. But when last year’s protests presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with an unusual ferociousness. That turned out to be the opening salvo in a year of intense repression, the most shocking example of which was the arrest of a journalist after his flight was forced to divert to Belarus. Authorities first claimed that Taraikovsky, 34, was killed when an explosive device he intended to throw at police blew up in his hands, but Associated Press video showed that he had no explosives when he fell to the ground.”

“Officials later acknowledged that Taraikovsky might have been killed by a rubber bullet. But they never opened an inquiry. ‘It was a premeditated murder, but they don’t want to recognize it,’ Taraikovsky’s partner, Elena German, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Minsk, Belarus’ capital. ‘There is no law. We haven’t yet received a formal refusal to open a criminal case, so we can’t even appeal,’ she said. ‘They didn’t even return the clothes Sasha (Taraikovsky) was wearing when he left home on that day.’ Even as Belarusian authorities responded with mass arrests and beatings, peaceful demonstrations, some of which drew up to 200,000 people, continued for months. Eventually, relentless repressions – and winter weather – took their toll, and the protests withered. Opposition leaders have been either jailed or forced to leave the country, and authorities have moved methodically to stamp out any sign of dissent.”