Belarus Election Challenger Is 'safe' In Lithuania: Minister

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published August 11, 2020 | 02:16 PM

Belarus opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is in Lithuania, the foreign minister said on Tuesday, following a second night of clashes after a disputed election in the authoritarian former Soviet republic

Vilnius, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Aug, 2020 ) :Belarus opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is in Lithuania, the foreign minister said on Tuesday, following a second night of clashes after a disputed election in the authoritarian former Soviet republic.

"She arrived in Lithuania and is safe," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told AFP.

President Gitanas Nauseda's office said Tikhanovskaya was "resting" in the Baltic state.

"The president's office is in constant contact with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who arrived in Lithuania. She is currently resting," Nauseda's spokesman Antanas Bubnelis told AFP.

The whereabouts of Tikhanovskaya, a political novice who has claimed victory in Sunday's poll against President Alexander Lukashenko, had been unknown as of late Monday in Minsk.

EU and NATO member Lithuania, which was also once part of the Soviet Union, has a history of granting refuge to Belarusian and Russian opposition figures.

"Vilnius has a history of Belarusian opposition concentration. It is also the convenient geographical location because it is close to Minsk," Vilnius university analyst Laurynas Jonavicius told AFP.

The Lithuanian capital hosts an EU-funded Belarusian university in exile, the European Humanities University, after Lukashenko shut it down in 2004.

In a show of solidarity with protesters, the city's municipality lit up its four bridges overnight in white-red-white -- the historical Belarusian flag used by opposition activists.

One man died in protests in Belarus as thousands took to the streets of the capital Minsk late on Monday, saying Lukashenko had stolen the election from Tikhanovskaya to take a sixth term.

Police used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas but demonstrators fought back with stones and fireworks and built makeshift barricades, AFP reporters, protesters and witnesses said, in chaotic scenes of defiance.