{"id":203942,"date":"2026-09-16T13:14:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/203942\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T13:14:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:14:53","slug":"cichanouskaja-commemorates-opposition-politicians-missing-since-1999","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/203942\/","title":{"rendered":"Cichano\u016dskaja commemorates opposition politicians missing since 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\n Viktar Han\u010dar and Anatol Kraso\u016dski\n <\/div>\n \n
\n (Viasna)<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

September 16, Pozirk.<\/em> <\/strong>Belarusian opposition leader \u015aviat\u0142ana Cichano\u016dskaja has commemorated Viktar Han\u010dar and Anatol Kraso\u016dski, political opponents of Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka, who went missing in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn this day in 1999, Viktar Han\u010dar and Anatol Kraso\u016dski were abducted and murdered by the Belarus regime’s death squads,\u201d she said on X. \u201cTheir families still have no graves to visit. For 27 years, the regime has denied their families truth and justice. Those responsible will answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other missing persons include former Interior Minister Juryj Zacharanka and cameraman D\u017amitryj Zavadski. Their families made numerous attempts to find out their whereabouts, but investigations conducted by authorities have not answered the key question: what happened to the victims of abductions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities swept the issue under the carpet during the subsequent presidential election, in which \u0141uka\u0161enka was declared the winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2001, Christos Pourgourides, rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, concluded after visiting Belarus that \u201csteps were taken at the highest level of the state to actively cover up the true background of the disappearances.\u201d Evidence suggested that \u201csenior officials of the state may themselves be involved in these disappearances,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, media reported that exiled former elite police unit Juryj Hara\u016dski admitted to being a member of a government-run death squad that allegedly abducted and killed Kraso\u016dski and Han\u010dar in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he was acquitted at a trial in Switzerland in 2023, the hearing was important in itself because Belarusian investigators have never established the fact of the murder. Belarusian investigators admitted that the opposition figures had vanished, but said they did not know what had happened to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Hara\u016dski trial, the Swiss judge concluded that the ex-SOBR member might have been involved in crimes, but his role remained unidentified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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