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I've been following the situation in Belarus since last August and it's really terrible. I admire how so many brave people look death in the eye and still fight

by iyn 5y ago

I've been following the situation in Belarus since last August and it's really terrible. I admire how so many brave people look death in the eye and still fight for freedom. I have friends there and this allowed me to understand that there's so much potential in Belarus -- there are so many talented, intelligent people getting by in this adversarial environment. So sad to see how Lukashenko's kleptocracy regime wasted so many years and chances for a better future for millions of people. Anyway -- you can help! Most of the communication, coordination and crime-documenting happens on Telegram and the regime tries to block access to this information. You can run Telegram Proxy [0][1]. The installation is fairly straightforward, mostly setup and forget. After setup you can register your proxy with MTProxybot [2], so that people can learn about/use your proxy. If you know people there, I also recommend setting up a private proxy just for them (i.e. not registering with [2]) and sharing over private communication channel (e.g. Signal), as the thugs try to block proxies, so it's a cat-and-mouse game. Edit: Added info about MTProxybot. [0] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/mtproto-transports https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/mtproto-transports [1] https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/MTProxy https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/MTProxy [2] https://t.me/MTProxybot https://t.me/MTProxybot

Jkae80 5y ago
Yeah? Check out the involvement of NGO directly financed by the West. What ever happened in Ukraine's coup orchestrated by the West is not going to happen in Belarus. And that is a hard pill to swallow for you people.
- yurielt 5y ago
  lol who is you people what I ma baffled at your statement I know the West has insiduous ties with what is happening in there but how is it bad to register crimes yeah the west can be degenerate and infuence things but Lukashenko seems to be corrupt so how is people being able to talk in an app something you criticize like this? Get a grip
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Lets imagine the coup is orchestrated by the West. The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is living in Belarus going to get worse without him?
  - ramtatatam 5y ago
    It might get worst if country gets into a war situation like in Ukraine..
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is living in Belarus going to get worse without him? If one goes by the example of what happened in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, the answer is very well: yes, this could happen. Putsching away or otherwise deposing a regime is only one step. Without a solid aftercare plan (like the Marshall Plan after WW2) to empower democratic actors, the power vacuum can have really really bad outcomes.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    I have no real dog in the fight, but the exact same arguments were made about Iraq and Libya. They weren't great places to live before removing the dictators, but they were much, much worse afterwards. Not saying that's the same in Belarus, but that argument by itself doesn't hold water.
  - levosmetalo 5y ago
    List of countries where "the West" organized a coup against a "corrupt murderer dictator" to establish "democratic elected government": - Ukraine - Syria - Libya - Georgia - Iraq - Iran - Afghanistan - Yugoslavia - Venezuela - Cuba - ex-Yugoslavia - Chile - ... All those countries were devastated by the "democratization". I would like to see one example where that went good for the local population in general and where that brought progress and prosperity.
    - oytis 5y ago
      Former Yugoslavia countries are doing pretty well actually. Genocides has been stopped, nations were able to establish their own countries, none of them returned to a dictatorship, all have democratically elected governments. Definitely better than before.
baybal2 5y ago
> Anyway -- you can help! The best way to help them now is to send arms, but that if of course if you can get them through the border. Belarus knows that they can't trust army drafted from regular men, and that's why the army was sent off to seal the borders, while the special police monsters are let to keep doing their atrocities inside cities. The West is also unwittingly facilitates this by keeping shutting down attempts to get arms to Belarus from Balkans. It's now in the news, but Poland, a NATO member, has already shut a third attempt to get arms to the country, despite Warsaw itself being the one initiating this with Belarus opposition.
- baq 5y ago
  you really think having a civil war right around the corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is something any country wants to have? not to mention having an armed rebellion means putin's intervention is guaranteed and then belarus just becomes another federal district.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > you really think having a civil war right around the corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is something any country wants to have? If you don't want a civil war on the other side of the fence, go and win it. With current discord in the Belorussian armed forces, double digit desertion rate, broken command chain, even the smallest NATO armies can easily plough though them. Your bigger problem will be the militarised special police, paramilitaries, and secret services, which are in fact, bigger, and better armed, and trained than the standing military (this is the same situation you have across all Eastern Bloc btw.)
    - baq 5y ago
      i'm sure all Belarusans would love to have two foreign armies marching through their homeland, both with words of liberation on their standards.
      - DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
varispeed 5y ago
What are the legal ramifications of running such proxy? For instance, if a group of people coordinate a criminal activity and it is proven that they used the proxy to communicate? Could owner of such proxy become liable?
- proxysna 5y ago
  None, but if cops think that you are liable you will be persecuted. There were instances when having a contract with a lawyer would be interpreted as if you were intending to break the law [0]. So you can imagine how little evidence will be required. [0] https://news.tut.by/society/700543.html https://news.tut.by/society/700543.html
- DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
  depends on many factors, e.g. which country you live in whether there are extradition agreements with the foreign country, whether you are a native of the country you live in, whether there are exclusions of certain acts in your country etc. Not "shitting where you eat" (never do something that is a crime in your own country) is basic opsec but the details are usually a lot more complex.
- HappyDreamer 5y ago
  In a dictatorship, it doesn't matter so much if you use it in a legal way or not -- what matters, is instead if the dictator does not like it (or if he likes it). If you use such a proxy in a completely legal way, but that the dictator thinks might make him lose his power, then he can make up fake charges against you and put you in prison.
disabled 5y ago
A banned book in Belarus, called "Paranoia", by Victor Martinovich, captures the situation that Belarusians are in. "In the summertime, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, young couples rent boats. They float, seemingly aimlessly, with the current of the Svisloch River, until they find themselves under a bridge. Then they row against the current for as long as they can, hoping to find shelter from the sun and from prying eyes. The premise of Belarusian writer Victor Martinovich’s Russian-language novel Paranoia is that this is impossible. As a police state such as today’s Belarusian dictatorship approaches perfect control, someone is always watching. The young lovers are watching each other, whether they understand this or not. The only way to be safe in such a society is to abandon love, but true solitude courts paranoia." [1] New York Review of Books, "Paranoia" Review: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/10/28/darkest-belarus/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/10/28/darkest-belarus/ [2] Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/fTOcP#selection-647.0-651.318 https://archive.is/fTOcP#selection-647.0-651.318
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  This sounds like an excellent read. Will definitely get my hands on a copy. I don't know what it is about East European authors' ability to explore the human condition with exacting clarity. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
  - disabled 5y ago
    They have a good command of language in general, and especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic languages, there are often a lot of words that have the exact same meaning (compared to English or romance languages), but you have to learn individually how to use the right one to capture the moment best for your situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, direct, and concise with respect to communication and expression, in comparison to English. The language I speak is much more complicated than English, grammatically. It has 7 grammatical cases (all words), 7 tenses (all verbs), and 3 genders (all nouns and adjectives), which change the conjugations of each of the words, whether they be a verb, noun, or adjective. English has 3 grammatical cases, 12 tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).

by iyn 5y ago

Jkae80 5y ago

Yeah? Check out the involvement of NGO directly financed by the West. What ever happened in Ukraine's coup orchestrated by the West is not going to happen in Belarus. And that is a hard pill to swallow for you people.

yurielt 5y ago
lol who is you people what I ma baffled at your statement I know the West has insiduous ties with what is happening in there but how is it bad to register crimes yeah the west can be degenerate and infuence things but Lukashenko seems to be corrupt so how is people being able to talk in an app something you criticize like this? Get a grip
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Lets imagine the coup is orchestrated by the West. The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is living in Belarus going to get worse without him?
- ramtatatam 5y ago
  It might get worst if country gets into a war situation like in Ukraine..
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is living in Belarus going to get worse without him? If one goes by the example of what happened in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, the answer is very well: yes, this could happen. Putsching away or otherwise deposing a regime is only one step. Without a solid aftercare plan (like the Marshall Plan after WW2) to empower democratic actors, the power vacuum can have really really bad outcomes.
- luckylion 5y ago
  I have no real dog in the fight, but the exact same arguments were made about Iraq and Libya. They weren't great places to live before removing the dictators, but they were much, much worse afterwards. Not saying that's the same in Belarus, but that argument by itself doesn't hold water.
- levosmetalo 5y ago
  List of countries where "the West" organized a coup against a "corrupt murderer dictator" to establish "democratic elected government": - Ukraine - Syria - Libya - Georgia - Iraq - Iran - Afghanistan - Yugoslavia - Venezuela - Cuba - ex-Yugoslavia - Chile - ... All those countries were devastated by the "democratization". I would like to see one example where that went good for the local population in general and where that brought progress and prosperity.
  - oytis 5y ago
    Former Yugoslavia countries are doing pretty well actually. Genocides has been stopped, nations were able to establish their own countries, none of them returned to a dictatorship, all have democratically elected governments. Definitely better than before.

baybal2 5y ago

> Anyway -- you can help! The best way to help them now is to send arms, but that if of course if you can get them through the border. Belarus knows that they can't trust army drafted from regular men, and that's why the army was sent off to seal the borders, while the special police monsters are let to keep doing their atrocities inside cities. The West is also unwittingly facilitates this by keeping shutting down attempts to get arms to Belarus from Balkans. It's now in the news, but Poland, a NATO member, has already shut a third attempt to get arms to the country, despite Warsaw itself being the one initiating this with Belarus opposition.

baq 5y ago
you really think having a civil war right around the corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is something any country wants to have? not to mention having an armed rebellion means putin's intervention is guaranteed and then belarus just becomes another federal district.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > you really think having a civil war right around the corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is something any country wants to have? If you don't want a civil war on the other side of the fence, go and win it. With current discord in the Belorussian armed forces, double digit desertion rate, broken command chain, even the smallest NATO armies can easily plough though them. Your bigger problem will be the militarised special police, paramilitaries, and secret services, which are in fact, bigger, and better armed, and trained than the standing military (this is the same situation you have across all Eastern Bloc btw.)
  - baq 5y ago
    i'm sure all Belarusans would love to have two foreign armies marching through their homeland, both with words of liberation on their standards.
    - DyslexicAtheist 5y ago

varispeed 5y ago

What are the legal ramifications of running such proxy? For instance, if a group of people coordinate a criminal activity and it is proven that they used the proxy to communicate? Could owner of such proxy become liable?

proxysna 5y ago
None, but if cops think that you are liable you will be persecuted. There were instances when having a contract with a lawyer would be interpreted as if you were intending to break the law [0]. So you can imagine how little evidence will be required. [0] https://news.tut.by/society/700543.html https://news.tut.by/society/700543.html
DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
depends on many factors, e.g. which country you live in whether there are extradition agreements with the foreign country, whether you are a native of the country you live in, whether there are exclusions of certain acts in your country etc. Not "shitting where you eat" (never do something that is a crime in your own country) is basic opsec but the details are usually a lot more complex.
HappyDreamer 5y ago
In a dictatorship, it doesn't matter so much if you use it in a legal way or not -- what matters, is instead if the dictator does not like it (or if he likes it). If you use such a proxy in a completely legal way, but that the dictator thinks might make him lose his power, then he can make up fake charges against you and put you in prison.

disabled 5y ago

A banned book in Belarus, called "Paranoia", by Victor Martinovich, captures the situation that Belarusians are in. "In the summertime, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, young couples rent boats. They float, seemingly aimlessly, with the current of the Svisloch River, until they find themselves under a bridge. Then they row against the current for as long as they can, hoping to find shelter from the sun and from prying eyes. The premise of Belarusian writer Victor Martinovich’s Russian-language novel Paranoia is that this is impossible. As a police state such as today’s Belarusian dictatorship approaches perfect control, someone is always watching. The young lovers are watching each other, whether they understand this or not. The only way to be safe in such a society is to abandon love, but true solitude courts paranoia." [1] New York Review of Books, "Paranoia" Review: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/10/28/darkest-belarus/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/10/28/darkest-belarus/ [2] Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/fTOcP#selection-647.0-651.318 https://archive.is/fTOcP#selection-647.0-651.318

vagrantJin 5y ago
This sounds like an excellent read. Will definitely get my hands on a copy. I don't know what it is about East European authors' ability to explore the human condition with exacting clarity. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
- disabled 5y ago
  They have a good command of language in general, and especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic languages, there are often a lot of words that have the exact same meaning (compared to English or romance languages), but you have to learn individually how to use the right one to capture the moment best for your situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, direct, and concise with respect to communication and expression, in comparison to English. The language I speak is much more complicated than English, grammatically. It has 7 grammatical cases (all words), 7 tenses (all verbs), and 3 genders (all nouns and adjectives), which change the conjugations of each of the words, whether they be a verb, noun, or adjective. English has 3 grammatical cases, 12 tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).