May 20, Pozirk. MP and former prosecutor Maryna Lančeŭskaja claimed she received death threats during 2020 postelection protests, Minsk-Novosti reported in its coverage of the lawmaker’s May 16 information session for students.
Lančeŭskaja chairs the lower chamber’s standing committee on legislation and is known for suggesting the expansion of the death penalty “for attempted acts of terrorism.”
“They [protesters in 2020] wrote: we’ll cut off your heads, burn down your house and kill your elderly parents. I’m being honest and by the way, I still have the screenshots. I’m not deleting them . . . One cannot forget such things,” she said, but would not specify whether she reported the death threats to the police.
She accused the opposition of compiling databases on Belarusian officials and their families, claiming that protesters were planning to dig mass graves as the Nazis did, and shoot or “bury them alive.”
“We must stand united to prevent this from happening again,” she said, stressing the importance of state ideology, which usually stands for loyalty to Alaksandar Łukašenka.
Following the controversial 2020 presidential election and predominantly peaceful protests that followed, authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on opponents and dissenters in Belarus.
Protests and criticism of the government are treated as criminal offenses and branded “extremist” activities in Belarus.
Independent media outlets were either shut down or had to relocate abroad, their content is blocked, while those who access and share it face jail sentences.
Belarusians critical of the government continue emigrating.
Also read: Belarus’ investigators target exiled activists, threaten expropriation
