Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday said that some of his political opponents had “chosen” to go to prison as he cast his vote in an election that was set to extend his 31-year rule.
Lukashenko, 70, held a long news conference during which he was asked how the vote could be free and fair, given that all the main opposition figures are in jail or have fled the country.
“Some chose prison, some chose ‘exile,’ as you say. We didn’t kick anyone out of the country,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Lukashenko said no one was prevented from speaking out in Belarus, but prison was “for people who opened their mouths too wide, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law.”
The US and the EU both described yesterday’s election as a sham, given the repression of political opponents and the banning of independent media.
“This is a blatant affront to democracy,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said on the eve of the vote.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya last week said that Lukashenko was engineering his re-election as part of a “ritual for dictators.”
Lukashenko shrugged off the criticism as meaningless and said it was irrelevant to him whether the West decided to recognize the election or not.
The EU and the US both said they did not recognize him as the legitimate leader of Belarus after he used his security forces to crush mass protests following the previous election in 2020, when Western governments backed Tsikhanouskaya’s claim that he had falsified the results to cheat her of victory.
Tens of thousands of people were arrested. Human rights group Viasna, which is banned as an “extremist” organization, said there are still about 1,250 political prisoners.
Lukashenko said he had freed many people, referring to more than 250 pardons he has issued in the past year.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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