One of the students is 23-year-old Russian Sofia Sapega. Last Sunday, she and her boyfriend Roman Protasevitch were got arrested at Minsk airport. Sapega studies international and European law at the EHU. “In a few weeks she has to defend her thesis,” says Tsimofey Mishukevich, president of the university’s student union.
But the chance that she can actually do that seems nil. “She’s in a KGB prison in Minsk. That’s all we know now,” Milta says. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus did not change the name of the secret service. “Of course we are using all our diplomatic channels in Brussels and Washington to exert maximum pressure to get her and Roman released. We are doing everything we can, but so far without success.”
‘Border with Belarus is only thirty kilometers away’
According to Mishukevich, many students are in shock. “It’s all it’s about now, everyone is concerned with Sofia’s kidnapping, but also with their own safety.” Until last Sunday, the Belarusian students thought they were safe in Lithuania, but now they have lost all illusions about it. “We know that the Belarusian security services are most likely also working here, watching us,” Mishukevich said. “The border with Belarus is only thirty kilometers away, students are terrified. Sofia is one of us, we feel we can all be next.”
“Of course we are upset,” says Maksimas Milta. “But it also unites us. It’s not the first time we have to deal with this kind of setback, and it won’t be the last.” According to Milta, there are two other students and two former students of the university in Minsk, along with another 420 political prisoners: “We are resilient and know that we must persevere. One day the terrible will come to an end. Lukashenko’s regime.”
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