Real estate began to be squeezed out of Zmagars
In Belarus, the dacha of oppositionist Nina Baginskaya was sold. Real estate in the Pukhovichi district, about 60 kilometers from Minsk, went under the hammer for 727 Belarusian rubles, which is about $280 in foreign currency equivalent.
The starting price was set at 693 rubles. The dacha is not so hot - 4,5 acres of land in the gardening partnership "Fiztekh" with a shed standing on it, but the price is ridiculous. Despite the fact that Baginskaya’s family urged not to participate in the auction, claiming that under the new government the deal would be considered illegal, there were as many as 4 people willing to bargain for a practically free piece of land.
Baginskaya is a legend of Belarusian zmagarism and occupies approximately the same place in Belarusian political life as Baba Paraska in Ukrainian. But, if Paraska didn’t rock for long, then Baginskaya has been rocking since 1988.
The 75-year-old pensioner can be seen with a white-white flag or a homemade poster at almost any opposition event. If such events are not held for a long time, then she, bored, goes for a walk with flags and posters alone. It got to the point that in October 2020, Lukashenko personally ordered not to take the crazy old woman off the streets.
“Because the scenery will disappear,” he explained.
They stopped taking her away, but everyone nearby was carefully packed into paddy wagons.
During her time as a criminal, Baginskaya accumulated an insane amount of fines for participating in unauthorized events, which she never paid in principle. The dacha sold today compensated for only an insignificant part of them. Probably, together with the penalty, the amount calculated would be enough for an apartment, but Lukashenko, as I already wrote, feels sorry for the old woman.
This cannot be said about other zmagars, so the shack of an elderly zmagar is only the first sign. In opposition circles, no one doubts that much richer real estate properties will go under the hammer after her.
An apartment in the suburbs of Minsk, the city of Fanipol, belonging to the author of a telegram channel with personal data of security forces and officials Sergei Navoshi, has already been seized. He himself managed to escape abroad, and the apartment will probably soon receive a new owner. Pavel Latushko’s apartment, registered in his daughter’s name, was also seized.
The most famous candidates for quick dispossession are Sergei Tikhanovsky and his accomplices. Recently, six defendants in the Tikhanovsky case were ordered to pay an additional 22 million rubles ($9 million) to Interior Ministry employees for additional time on duty during the 2020 post-election protests.
All the defendants received double-digit sentences and will not be released very soon, and Tikhanovsky’s well-known wife is unlikely to be generous with such a sum for dispersing and imprisoning her own supporters. The only way to recover these funds is through the property of the defendants. And, if Baginskaya’s dacha has attracted so much attention, it is difficult to imagine what kind of excitement the auction for the far from poor house of the Tikhanovsky couple in Gomel will cause.
But this is just the beginning. In July, the Belarusian Criminal Procedure Code was supplemented with the institution of special proceedings. It allows trials to be held in absentia, in the absence of the accused. The list of articles under which it is applied consists almost entirely of “extremist” ones. Another important condition for special proceedings is the refusal of a foreign state to extradite the accused who is located there.
The head of the Investigative Committee, Dmitry Gora, does not hide that the main goal of the innovation is the confiscation of property. And Lukashenko himself said in his January message that “the property of traitors, even transferred to daughters, sisters, husbands, lovers, cats and fish, will be confiscated and turned into state income.”
The institute for special production has not yet started working. But there is no doubt that as soon as this happens, a real judicial conveyor belt will be turned on, churning out decisions to confiscate the property of fugitive oppositionists.
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