MINSK, 28 January (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko held a government meeting to discuss legislative improvements on 28 January, BelTA has learned.
At the beginning of the meeting, the head of state said that last year was a year of lessons in many ways. “Protests, calls for strikes at factories, sabotage on the rail, threats and violence against government officials, hacker attacks on government information resources, and so on. This is not a complete list of what we have faced,” said the Belarusian leader.
He added that all those subversive activities were actively coordinated and financed from abroad: “Illegal actions were coordinated through social networks and messengers. Fake information was used to discredit the law enforcement's efforts to restore order in Belarus. The time has passed. Everything I am saying today has proved true.”
“Law enforcement and other government agencies prevented our country from falling into an abyss of a color revolution, no matter how much foreign sponsors of the protests wanted it. Although we have suppressed the most vivid manifestations of protest activity, I see no reason for complacency. I have stated the reasons many times. I can repeat them again. Most importantly, we do not know what they are going to do next. Their specialists there are no match to ours, pardon my frankness. They have carried out many so-called colored revolutions, revolts which destroyed countries as their heads of state were raped, staked (I am not naming names) and so on,” said the president.
In this regard, Aleksandr Lukashenko repeatedly warned against letting the guard down, and Russia can be cited as an example here. “They say Putin is repeating what Lukashenko did. No, this is not true. We should learn from the Russians how to respond to such things, and not only in law enforcement terms,” the president said.
“There are dissenters who have their so-called own opinion. This is okay. We have always had those who have a different opinion. Look, there is nothing new, except for the length of the protests this time. We have always had such things here after I became President and broke the nationalistic, fascist course they pursued then. In response we got cars overturned and set on fire, ‘tridents' from Ukraine, from Poland, certain white and red flags and so on and so forth. We saw this all before. The only thing is that the pandemic has left a certain mark. Everything was the same just bit longer,” said the head of state.
He added that the protests were also joined by Belarusian nationals who had previously worked in other countries, and because of the pandemic and closed borders were out of business. “These are our people who returned from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and other countries. They have failed to find a place for themselves here. Plus those who took goods, mainly fuel, across the border in Brest Oblast and Grodno Oblast to sell and resell. The pandemic closed the borders. I did not close them then, the pandemic did. Those people do not know how to do any other job,” the president said.
“There were also people who went astray. I always said that we will work with these people. I will be working with them even more actively. I had a dialogue with everyone who wanted it,” said the head of state.
Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized that a lot has been done in recent years to liberalize the legal framework in the country. “The law should not only respond promptly to any violations, but also to preempt any possible threats. This is the most important thing,” said the head of state.
He stated that, according to citizens' proposals, a number of norms necessary for this purpose have already been included in the new codes on administrative responsibility and also in the amendments to criminal legislation. “Is this enough or do we need something else, for example, in part of combating extremism and terrorism? Should we revisit the legislation on mass events and other acts related to public safety? Do we need to take a look at how it is done abroad, in France, Germany, and neighboring Russia? The answers to these questions must be found by the bodies that are now on the front line of the struggle against the attempts to destabilize the situation in the country,” the Belarusian leader said.
According to the head of state, the State Secretariat of the Security Council coordinates the relevant work, the Prosecutor General's Office supervises compliance with the law, while the Supreme Court ensures judicial review of materials prepared by law enforcement and other authorized bodies.
“Therefore, I would like to hear from you the most balanced proposals on the subject we are discussing today. We must not navigate by individual and departmental interests, but think about larger things, primarily about the country's security. It is important to understand what things we really lack in legislation to reliably identify and prevent any action directed against the state,” said the Belarusian leader.
