Belarus Nobel Laureate interrogated by authorities, keeps quiet

Belarusian Nobel Prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich says she refused to answer investigators’ questions after she was summoned as a witness in a criminal probe into the opposition.

Opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko formed a Coordination Council to oversee a peaceful transition of power after they rejected his claim to have won a sixth term in an August 9 presidential vote.

Lukashenko dispatched the security services to violently crack down on mass protests against his re-election and opened a criminal probe into the council, accusing its members of attempting to topple his government.

Alexievich was named a member of the council’s presidium but has not attended its sessions.

“I am completely calm. I do not feel guilty. Everything we are doing is legal and necessary,” Alexievich tells AFP as she arrived at the Investigative Committee’s headquarters in Minsk with other members of the presidium.

She left shortly afterwards, saying she had invoked her right not to testify against herself and that the council’s only goal was “to unite society.”

Alexievich, who won the Nobel Literature Prize in 2015, is an outspoken critic of Lukashenko and has supported leading opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya who fled to neighbouring Lithuania after claiming victory in the vote.

— AFP