Raman Pratasevich long feared that Belarusian authorities would try to abduct him, even though he had fled the country. They arrested him Sunday.
Detainees swept up in protest against Belarus president describe harrowing jailhouse abuse. Major rights group deems some of it torture.As a journalism student, he worked for the Belarusian service of the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other outlets.
Pratasevich joined protests in neighboring Ukraine in 2014 that ousted its Moscow-leaning president, sustaining an injury in a clash with police. He was wounded again the next year duringLukashenko and other Belarusian officials alleged that Pratasevich fought as a “mercenary” in eastern Ukraine, but Andriy Biletskiy, who led the Azov volunteer battalion in the region, insisted Pratasevich was working as a journalist there.
Pratasevich was expelled from Belarusian State University in 2018 as punishment for his cooperation with independent media, and he left the country the following year amid growing official pressure.He shot to fame last year when he and another young journalist, Stsiapan Putsila, set up a channel on the Telegram messaging app called Nexta, which sounds like the word for “somebody” in Belarusian.
The Nexta channel boasted nearly 2 million subscribers in the nation of 9.3 million, and was an important tool in mounting the demonstrations, the largest of which drew up to 200,000 people. It, gave directions for bypassing security cordons, and carried photos, video and other content from users about the police crackdown.
“We have become a voice for every Belarusian,” Pratasevich said at the time. He said Nexta had only four employees who worked 20 hours a day.Viachorka said that, even in the most desperate situations, Pratasevich “would tell Belarusians not to give up. Lukashenko targeted him because he was so visible, brave and bright.”