Nadia Pogodaeva is not just one of the 10,000 women who marched through Minsk on Saturday to call for President Alexander Lukashenko to respect the latest election results. She is also social media star in her own right due to recently captured footage showing her in a heated (but also funny) exchange with a police officer.
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"The truth is that I was not the first to confront him," she told Israel Hayom. "I asked him about the the hundreds of abuse cases in Belarus since the August 9 election, and pressed him as to why he was against us, and whether he would hit us if he got an order to do so. He said that he was standing there because that is his job and that he would not hit any of us because he has a head on his shoulders. When I asked him why he was partaking in the violent crackdown against the people whom he took an oath to protect, he did not respond."
Pogodaeva, 21, lives in Minsk. She an ecology student at the Belarusian State University. She recalls that the officer took off his mask when they had their quarrel. "This is important, because when others asked him why he was hiding behind the mask, he said that he was just afraid of the virus. We saw his face. He is a very young man. Women have a voice that should be heard; it's important to hear them out."
Perhaps this footage was so viral not just due to his uncovered face, but also because it underscored the prominence of women in the history that is currently unfolding in Belarus. Even before the election, when three candidates were disqualified or arrested, their campaigns united under the auspices of a woman: human rights activist Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the spouse of one of the candidates who had been arrested.
She crisscrossed the nation alongside two other women who were associated with other candidates, and together they became the face of the protest movement. Now, with Lukashenko refusing to concede following the tainted elections, women are the leading force behind the demonstrations – both large and small – on a daily and weekly basis.
Such a protest movement that is so widespread – covering all professions, age groups and social classes – is unprecedented. Lukashenko is known for his misogynist views and he has ridiculed Tsikhanouskaya for aspiring to become a leader, claiming the constitution is meant only for men. In that regard, the protest movement can be seen as a desire to break free from the chains of conservatism and stand up to the culture of torture and arrests that has impacted both sexes in Belarus, but with particular cruelty against women.
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