Over the seven days of his arrest, Pavel Paleichyk got fresh air only once. On May 9, he and his cellmate were released to work. "We had to dig up weeds from the asphalt with a shovel. But at least we were out and about for half an hour," says Paleichyk, a few days after his release.
Paleichyk is an ambulance driver from Lida, a city in western Belarus. At the end of April he turned up to a citizens' meeting with Syarhei Tsikhanouski, the prominent blogger and activist from the city of Gomel. Paleichyk spoke on camera about the challenges the country's doctors now face. "What's happening is terrifying!" he exclaimed, describing the long shifts, the shortage of ambulances and drivers, and the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).
But this was an "unauthorised event." Paleichyk was detained and arrested. The ambulance driver assumed he would be fined or reprimanded. Until he heard the verdict, Paleichyk couldn't have imagined that he would end up in an isolation cell. Nevertheless, he does not regret his actions – he wanted to let people know "what's really going on."
Pavel was not the only person detained around Victory Day, when the country commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany. According to the Vesna human rights centre, around 120 people were detained in Belarus that day, summoned to police stations or charged with administrative offences.
Those detained had participated in protests or, as they called them, "meetings" with the blogger Tsikhanouski. These had been held in several Belarusian cities. Tsikhanouski has gained popularity thanks to his "Country for Life" YouTube channel, where he interviews ordinary citizens about their concerns. They complain about poor salaries, bad roads, and decrepit collective farms. They say that Alexander Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, is not their president.
On May 29, Tsikhanouski was arrested on charges of violence against the police. Protests in his support have broken out across the country.
Terms and conditions apply
Public discontent with poverty and mismanagement has been on the rise in Belarus. Today, it is compounded by dissatisfaction with the government's lack of proactive measures to combat COVID-19. The country has made headlines across Europe for its lacklustre approach to containing the virus; there has been no restriction on mass events such as the Belarusian football league and Victory Day parade. Lukashenka has dismissed concern about the pandemic as a "psychosis" and recommended working in the fields as the best cure.
These cynical remarks from the president have played an important role in souring the public mood. Belarus recorded its first official COVID-19 fatality when the virus claimed the life of Viktor Dashkevich on March 31. Lukashenka described the celebrated actor as a "poor bastard" who "couldn't hold out." Commenting on the death of a patient in the Vitebsk region, Lukashenka claimed that he had spoken with the regional governor, according to whom the man had apparently died due to being overweight. "And how can anybody live when they weigh 135 kilograms?" exclaimed Lukashenka, quoting the governor.
"There is a disconnect between the public's expectations and the authorities' assurances," begins Vadim Mojeiko, an analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS).
"Before, Belarus was run under the maxim that security guaranteed the absence of war and rampant crime. But in conditions of a pandemic, it turns out that there is another dimension to security – security for health and for survival. And the coronavirus demonstrates that this aspect has been wrung out of the agreement between rulers and ruled," says Mojeiko.
74 percent of Belarusians support bans on all mass events
A case study from late April by research firms BEROC and SATIO indicates that most Belarusians oppose their government's approach to COVID-19. Some 74 percent of Belarusians support bans on all mass events and 71 percent would like to see better information about the spread of the pandemic. Even though there are great fears that the Belarusian healthcare system will not cope with a surge in infections, Belarusians are even more afraid of declining salaries.
In early May Natalya, who works in retail in Minsk, received an email detailing the new terms of her employment contract. She was asked to either accept a 50 percent cut to her salary or face dismissal. Natalya asked that her surname not be published, but openDemocracy has seen documents confirming her story and the salary change proposed by her employer.
Hers is not the only case.
Another study, published by Belsat in April, reveals that Belarusians' economic well-being has recently plummeted, setting a record low for the past 20 years.
It appears that Lukashenka shares these fears. "Yeah, they'll come for me with pitchforks," said the president on April 26 when discussing quarantine measures, remarking that a lockdown would only hurt the economy even more.
This hits at the heart of the Belarusian social contract: the government ensures that citizens' basic needs are provided for in exchange for their renunciation of political and civil liberties.
