Светлана Тихановская. Скриншот видео
On Aug. 9, 2020, Belarus held a presidential election in which, according to official figures, Aliaksandr Lukashenka received 80.1% of the vote. That evening, thousands of people took to the streets to protest.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya addressed Belarusians on the sixth anniversary of the protests.
“It still hurts. And six years is long enough to become tired and begin to doubt whether any of this makes sense. But with each passing year, it is becoming increasingly clear: 2020 changed Belarus irreversibly.
For me, Aug. 9 is a promise not to forget. Not to forget that we are one nation. Not to forget that very moment when, among a crowd of tens of thousands of people, there emerged a feeling that we were capable of anything. Someone smiles, someone offers water, people take care of one another. And there are many of us. And we all want the same thing — to be free and to be called human beings,” Tsikhanouskaya said.