17 ms·
Belarus has temporarily banned most of its citizens from leaving
- TheMagicHorsey 5y agoI still have Russian-American friends who strongly support Putin, even after this. Putin's support is what allows Belarus to pull these stunts.
- ilyaeck 5y agoIs Belarus the first thing they worry about, though?
- throwaway4good 5y agoIt is very hard to understand why anyone would support Putin and what is going in Ukraine and Belarus, if all your understanding comes western media. However if you talk to these people, you get a different and oddly fascinating perspective.
- Chyzwar 5y agoLast time I spoke with a person from Ukraine. He was saying that they are at war with Russia. In situation where on frontline they cannot shoot back because Russia would paint them as offenders in media. Propaganda machine is so strong that Ukrainian people living in Russia would believe that Ukraine is now a fascist country and would gladly support even more intervention. In the meantime the country is economically struggling, people are leaving the west for work. If all sources of information are feeding you with propaganda, public institutions are deeply corrupt and your wages/retirement is propped by petro dollar you get people supporting Putin. What the West should be doing is to support Ukraine defending their territory. Instead, they freeze conflict for 5+ years without resolution.
- squarefoot 5y agoWell, In Italy we still have a huge number of people who would put fascism in power again if only they could, however all it takes is a 10 minutes chat with any of them to realize they're a bunch of racist bigot idiots. Being a huge number makes them just more dangerous, not more enlightened.
- jollybean 5y agoThis shouldn't be downvoted as Putin is indeed quite popular, it's weird. A Russian dev I knew mildly supported Putin, but he was in Canada to do dev work due to limited opportunities back home. We talked about Putin grabbing VKontakte and corruption etc.. They guy was very smart but the cognitive dissonance of him not realizing that Putin is literally the 'King of Corruption' that essentially supports and enables all of those terrible things is literally why he had to leave Russia. But as long as 'Putin is Strong' (or appears to be) - they like him. I've lost a lot of respect for Russians since 2010, in much the same way I lost a big chunk of respect for many Americans during the Trump era. It's one thing to be 'pragmatic' and accept Putin as the 'lesser of other evils' or to not understand business and therefore believe that Trump is a 'genius businessman' ... but it takes just a tiny bit of self-awareness to see past the stupidity. Putin is extremely corrupt, not directly tied to the Mafia but essentially it's under his umbrella because he enables it. If Putin was an actual 'Patriot' he would be viciously going after corruption, instead of just mouthy oligarchs and murdering journalists, he'd be putting top corrupt officials in jail and trying to transform the dour expectation that Russians have that their 'Leaders are Corrupt and That's The Way It Is'. The fact that a leader can almost openly murder opposition opponents and journalists, and intelligent, educated people just believe the propaganda is staggering. I had dinner with a nice, educated Russian girl who seemed surprised when I illustrated to her all of the shenanigans of corruption at the Sochi Olympics, as if it was the first she had heard of it. It's understandable that uneducated rural people with no access to information buy into propaganda. But it's unacceptable that urbane, educated, Russians support that guy. They'll reap what they sew - the same goes for everyone else. I have team members stuck in Belarus, they're pragmatic about it. Lukashenko doesn't have hugely popular support but I'm feeling that Belarussians are more chill than Russians. They're also pretty much ethnically Russian, so there's that and the economy is naturally tied to Russia. It's feeling a little bit like 1985.
- machinebun 5y agoI'm a Russian immigrant to US and very much anti-Putin, but in order to understand the Russian perspective you have to understand the psyche and history of a country, not just facts. And that's a lot harder to do - there are some metaphysical manifestations of that collective psyche that will be opaque to any outsider looking in. You have to realize that lots of Russians still remember gangs of actual criminals roaming around in the 1990s and being afraid for their physical safety; food shortages and everything else from the late 80s through to the end of the 90s; inflation that made your savings disappear before your eyes (and shortages/limits of all physical goods which meant there was no way to escape it). My grandparents had enough savings to buy four cars at the start of inflation (quite a bit of savings at the time), and after the inflation they ended up being able to only afford two couches with that money. And that's just the 80s/90s. Historically, Russia has a very bloody history and suffered greatly in WWII (and generally has suffered the highest percentage of losses in any violent conflict); the attitude a lot of people have there is "better the devil you know than the one you don't". And it checks out historically - the Revolutions that have historically been attempted in Russia didn't exactly lead to anything good for the average person. So while yes, all of the things you outlined are evidence of a cancer in the system, a lot of people still see it as better than the alternative(s) that they tasted in the 90s - which is why the situation persists. You're starting to see pushback from the generation(s) that grew up after the Union collapsed and that have no memories of the 90s, but otherwise the collective pain & memories are quite strong.
- sentinel 5y agoIncredible – I expect we'll soon see an uptick in illegal border crossings?
- tgragnato 5y agoIf Belarus does not have a tight control over international money transfers. Moving will be easier if citizens will be able to carry some savings. E.g.: people moving from HK to the UK are usually converting their HK$ to a cashier of foreign and crypto currencies.. Belarus and Hong Kong do not have the economy of North Korea
- foobarian 5y agoJust like the good old days eh!
- redsummer 5y agoWhy do they call Roman Protasevich a ‘top dissident’? He was part of the neo-nazi Azov Division.
- rhizome 5y agoWho would you suggest get the title? Honest question.
- ipaddr 5y agoBecause life isn't black or white. Someone can be a leader in the dissident movement and also part of other cultural groups. You will find people who join things are more likely to join other things.
- baskind 5y agoPlease don't spread Kremlin misinformation. Roman is a journalist and never was part of Azov neo-nazi group: http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissident-not-a-neo-nazi/ http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissi...
- throwaway4good 5y agoCan you perhaps explain what Azov Division is and why it is "neo-nazi"? Before your comment disappears in down votes.
- 5y ago
- FredPret 5y agoThis is an outrage. 9.5 million people held hostage because of a few maniacs in government. Individual liberty is truly a precious thing.
- codeecan 5y agoNorth Korea has a population of 25M
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoWestern Governments have done the same thing to their own citizenry for over a year... Melbourne, Australia is now in its 4th lockdown, a city of 5 million people, based on 50 positive PCR test results over the past week. Australian citizens generally cannot leave their country either, for over a year. Given that Belarus had no COVID lockdowns or restrictions, people there have enjoyed comparatively more freedom over the past year compared to the average Western citizen. The West also takes down airliners in attempts to apprehend journalists. If you have the wrong political opinions, you can lose your job, and be unpersoned by corporate groups with ties to the Government. The West no longer has the moral high ground and we should be aware of the propaganda levels of the world we are now living in. I'm not defending Russia or Belarus. They are mafia states. They are just less sophisticated operators without the global media on their side.
- misiti3780 5y agoWhat percentage of the city is vaccinated?
- misiti3780 5y agoPlease explain why I am being downvoted - That comment was not in bad faith, I was just generally curious
- Nursie 5y agoThis is such false equivalence it’s silly. Travel restrictions in the west enjoy wide support and are in response to a global health emergency, not spurious political reasons put in place by someone who appears to be an illegitimate leader. Your ‘unpersoned’ comment is laughable.
- yosito 5y agoWhen a country has to ban people from leaving, that's how you know it's time to get the fuck out if you still can.
- MangoCoffee 5y agoisn't it too late now? can you still get out?
- space_ghost 5y agoAsk citizens of (East) Berlin between 1961 and 1989. Edit: I definitely meant East, not West. It's a small but important distinction.
- ivan_gammel 5y agoHow is this the same?
- throwaway4good 5y agoIt is not.
- nso 5y agoWest?
- fighterpilot 5y agoYou mean East Berlin?
- space_ghost 5y agoI definitely meant East Berlin. I blame my Memorial Day hangover. :D
- KingOfCoders 5y agoI guess you've meant the GDR. But it reminds me of the best airport in the world, now closed, Tegel. <5 minutes from the taxi to the plane if you're good.
- luke2m 5y ago> including many foreign residency permit holders Does that mean that people can’t go back to their country of citizenship?
- ivan_gammel 5y agoIt probably means that citizens of Belarus visiting country but living and working elsewhere cannot return to the country of residence.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoThere were multiple reports of Lithuanian citizens with Belarusian residence permits being denied passage by Belarusian border guards. So yes, the situation is that bad. And I wonder why NATO says nothing about it. After all, it's their citizens. Also check this summary if you want more details [0] [0] https://telegra.ph/Kak-belorusu-vyehat-iz-strany-nazemnym-putem-Spojler-pochti-nikak-05-31 https://telegra.ph/Kak-belorusu-vyehat-iz-strany-nazemnym-pu...
- jbverschoor 5y agoThe whole world was trapped last year
- itsangaris 5y agoMost governments barred non-citizens from entering, and none that I know of had restrictions on leaving. I don't think it's a fair comparison.
- vinay427 5y agoThe "whole world" in the GP comment is nowhere near accurate. That being said, for starters, Australia still has restrictions on residents leaving without requesting special permission and at least at one point had a ban on re-entry of certain citizens, and the UK previously had a ban on non-essential travel abroad. Currently in place in Australia: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/COVID-19 https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/COVID-19 > There's a ban on overseas travel from Australia. You can’t leave Australia unless you get an exemption from the Department of Home Affairs. An earlier ban in the UK: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56493002 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56493002 > A £5,000 fine for anyone in England trying to travel abroad without good reason is due to come into force next week as part of new coronavirus laws.
- ajkdhcb2 5y agoAustralians have been banned from leaving for over a year, and there are entry restrictions (low rate of people allowed to enter) that make it infeasible for citizens to return unless you pay a lot of money
- munk-a 5y agoGranted - last year (and honestly, still most places that haven't seized large quantities of vaccines) that was for the good reason of preventing a pandemic.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoGreat plan, do they want to relive the China-NK relationship as Russia-Belarus? Ha
- samdb 5y agoDifferent reasons, but this is the same for residents of Australia. Shows you how quickly you can lose your liberties.
- throwaway894345 5y agoIn fairness, I think those "different reasons" are pretty significant (preventing people from fleeing oppression vs controlling the spread of a disease). You can criticize Australian COVID controls as heavy handed without comparing them so directly with a repressive dictatorship.
- anarchogeek 5y agoAustralia requires people to get a government permit to leave the country and they deny most of the requests! I don't care if they say it's medical, it's a major problem and means Australia has fucked up policies.
- throwaway894345 5y agoSo if it's medical and not at all like Belarus's policy, why discuss it here? Post a submission on Australia's travel ban and discuss it in context there?
- mikepurvis 5y agoThere is broad public support for COVID-related travel bans. In particular, the majority of people who are voluntarily staying home don't want the commons that is public health spoiled by a handful of selfish individuals who have decided that this is the personal liberties hill they want to die on. The situation in Australia is particularly poignant because of just how effective the short, strict lockdowns have been— well, surprise, they're effective and therefore short because they're strict. When you take half-measures and pander to people who don't want to cooperate, that's when it drags on for months leaving those who cooperated feeling frustrated and exhausted (see: most of the US and Canada).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- the_mitsuhiko 5y agoIt frustrates me so much how many online comments support this and related developments in Russia and Belarus.
- DickingAround 5y agoExamples? (Presumably there's some browse history that you're referring to which we may not be experiencing the same way. So citing sources is critical.)
- usui 5y agoI second this. I appreciate having access to foreign language primary sources even if they are not my native language since there's less of a bias filter other than sterile translation software
- failwhaleshark 5y agoIs there any way to prove that they're real comments from actual thinking people and not bots (Kremlin boiler room ops) or people who have been brainwashed watching too much network news or pro-everything-Kremlin? (Bots watching network news might be a thing too.)
- amir734jj 5y agoWhat about dual-citizens?
- betaby 5y agoThey can leave.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoI wonder if this will be the first domino for change in Russia…
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoI'd love for it to be so, but I don't see any mechanism for it to work that way.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoContinued escalation, eg no air travel from Europe to Russia, then the Russian people get covid-angry, etc.
- lostmsu 5y agoAs much as I believe Putin to be a crackpot totalitarian, they will not keep it closed for too long. It seems more like a one time "look what we can do to you people" show of force.
- usui 5y agoIt's much harder to enforce policy on those who leave, compared to enforcing policy on those who enter, is it not? If the reason for the policy was sincerely due to pandemic concerns, couldn't they have just stopped people from entering, regardless of nationality?
- wahern 5y agoRight of return is a relatively bedrock principle in international law. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return In principle a pandemic would seem an obvious exception, easily analogous to exceptions like war, but too many are in denial about it. Moreover, even if you nominally had a law preventing return, what do you do when a foreign country puts your citizens on a plane bound for your country? As a practical matter, it seems much easier, IMO, to restrict persons leaving than returning. It's also more flexible. Some number of people will leave, either illegally or via legal exceptions. So the policy has a pressure relief value. Conversely, a useful entry restriction demands much stricter application, which is likely to quickly crumble when your own citizens are trying to re-enter, especially in larger numbers as compared to a regime where they were restricted from leaving in the first place.
- KirillPanov 5y ago> what do you do when a foreign country puts your citizens on a plane bound for your country? You simply deny the validity of their travel documents. China does this all the time: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-deportations-exclusive-idUSKCN0RB0D020150911 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-deportations-ex... Airlines really do not want an entire aircraft refused landing because of one person. All the pre-departure paperwork procedures exist to prevent this from happening. Airlines won't go along with "just board them anyways" schemes unless forced to do so under threat. If they do cooperate (or are forced to) it gives the destination country cause to void that airline's licenses without risk of reciprocal sanctions against its own airlines. Dragging commercial airlines into a political dispute like this won't work.
- 5y ago
- frakt0x90 5y agoSo is Belarus going to be the next north korea?
- betaby 5y agomore like Franco era Spain I would say
- romanovcode 5y agoI assume it will become part of Russia sooner or later.
- standardUser 5y agoIt already has a political union with Russia (and is in practice a client state anyway). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State
- anarchogeek 5y agoSo why do we think this is terrible for Belarus but don't care that Australia has the same rules? So downvotes because you think Australia's rules don't count because they're nicer and speak english? I'd venture to guess the official reasons behind both bans 'public good'. By which we mean the state.
- mabbo 5y agoContext? I don't believe Australia has ever banned all people from leaving due to government critics trying to escape a pending purge.
- anarchogeek 5y agohttps://travel-exemptions.homeaffairs.gov.au/tep https://travel-exemptions.homeaffairs.gov.au/tep They're banning most people from leaving. Before this, Australia for more than a century banned a large portion of the population from even raising their own children.
- njudah 5y agoAustralia doesn't have the same rules. https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia
- ajkdhcb2 5y agoI was going to write exactly the same comment but see everyone else writing it is getting downvoted and flagged to oblivion...
- ex3ndr 5y agoThis is only for ground travel, by plane is not restricted.
- Scoundreller 5y agoAh, so the same as Canada has been for the past 14 months.
- pchristensen 5y agoThat's ... not comforting given Belarus grounding the plane last week.
- e_commerce 5y agoWho cares? The USA has a one-party, unelected, permanent regime in power right now.
- nagisa 5y agoNote that this has been happening since at least May 30th as reported by people working in Poland and Lithuania who had gone to visit their family in Belarus for the weekend.
- fnord77 5y agoseems like a desperation move. It's been a long while since I read "The Dictator's Handbook", but I'm guessing Lukashenko won't be free/alive too much longer?
- rich_sasha 5y agoSadly, regimes can hold on to power way beyond the point where the whole society is hostile to them. Poland had major protests against the communist regime in 1956, 1968 and throughout 1980s (plus various inbetween), but really the regime fell when (a) it literally went bankrupt, (b) USSR was not in a position to invade, like it did with Czechoslovakia before. And even then it was touch-and-go. Good luck to the Belarusians though!
- KingOfCoders 5y agoWorked for the GDR. At least for 40 years.
- krasin 5y agoFor whose who don't recognize the acronym: GDR = German Democradic Republic, aka East Germany, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
- vasachi 5y agoSo here I was wondering, why there is not a single article about this in Russian info-sphere. Apparently these restrictions were in action for quite some time [0]. But here we are, making news out of this :) [0] https://gpk.gov.by/covid-19/ https://gpk.gov.by/covid-19/
- hughmcc 5y ago“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.” JFK, Berlin. Obviously this situation in Belarus is a simple legal restriction and not a wall, but I’ve long thought that a sensible constitutional guarantee would be the right to leave the country at any time.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoThe border between Belarus and Poland is the former border between Soviet Union and Poland, its infrastructure beats whatever Trump wanted to do with the Wall. Crossing it illegally is close to impossible. Borders with Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine are a bit more leaky, but one has to be physically fit and logistically prepared to cross, and there is still a risk of being caught. And then what about kids and elders? So, this is not a legal restriction, but a real ban.
- rich_sasha 5y ago> The border between Belarus and Poland is the former border between Soviet Union and Poland, its infrastructure beats whatever Trump wanted to do with the Wall. Crossing it illegally is close to impossible. Interesting, it mostly runs along arbitrary forest paths etc, not major rivers or mountain ranges - not naturally easy to police. I once stayed in a cottage in the Bialowieza forest (one of few bits of primeval forest in Europe). The cottage was at a clearing, and the other side of the clearing was in Belarus. We never got any trouble for it, but it wasn’t rare to have border patrol appear out of nowhere and kindly enquire what you’re doing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- robotnaoborot 5y agoBorder with Russia? There is no border control at all. We have a union state with Belarus. Belarusian citizens can live here, work, get free education and healthcare without any restrictions or special permits they have same rights as Russian citizens. And on topic I don't know what's happening but it was the west first which closed it's airports for Belarusian planes. What's even the point of such sanctions? Officials are not affected by that at all. To punish commercial companies? Ordinary citizens? If anything such sanctions only make authoritarian leaders even more popular(at least among the kind of people which already supported them) and consolidate society against western hypocrisy. I'm in not a supporter of such leaders but the whole European reaction to that incident can be easily turned into propaganda against the west and you know they do have a point. Because there were several similar situations and there were no reaction AT ALL. And I don't live in Belarus but I have impression that Lukashenko is really popular there. Not among youth or some educated people, but among workers and farmers. When other ex-ussr countries seen total collapse of industry and social guaranties factories continued to work. I consume products they produce daily, I even have some clothes made there. Yes it's an authoritarian country but it's not some dystopia. It's a nice clean country with functioning institutions and very nice polite and hardworking people. Maybe it would be better with other kind of government idk. And btw from Russian state perspective Lukashenko is not the best "partner" he is very sneaky and two-faced and often "betrays" Russian state on important issues. And as a Russian taxpayer I don't like much that my taxes would go again to fund his little authoritarian paradise.
- dzyanis 5y agoI am from Belarus and I've always been impressed by the story of the Berlin Wall. And it's my dream that our wall will fall too. It is impossible to take it anymore...