: Meet the 73-Year-Old Great-Grandmother Defying the Dictatorship in Belarus #WorldNEWS As Belarus’s largest and most sustained opposition protests in decades continue, a 73-year-old veteran activist

Meet the 73-Year-Old Great-Grandmother Defying the Dictatorship in Belarus #WorldNEWS
As Belarus’s largest and most sustained opposition protests in decades continue, a 73-year-old veteran activist and grandmother has emerged as one of the movements iconic figures.
In August, a video of Nina Baginskaya pushing past two masked riot policemen went viral on social media. “I’m going for a walk,” she told the officers, while holding the disputed Belarusian national flag that originates from the country’s independence. Dictatorial leader Alexander Lukashenko has long considered the flag —a red horizontal stripe between two whites— as a symbol of national opposition to his rule and its public display has often led to arrest.

Baginskaya, a former geologist born when Belarus was still under Soviet rule, has become the unlikely hero of the tens of thousands rallying across the country protesting disputed elections on Aug. 9 that gave Lukashenko, Europe’s longest serving leader, a sixth term in office.
Officially, Lukashenko won 80. 1% of the vote and his main rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a political newcomer and former teacher, only 10. 1%. She rejected the outcome, insisting that she would have won support ranging from 60% to 70% had votes been properly counted.
Three months ahead of the election, authorities jailed opposition rivals and barred them from running, including Tikhanovskaya’s husband, a popular YouTuber and opposition figure, Sergei Tikhanovsky in May. After the elections, the main opposition figures fled the country fearing their safety or have been imprisoned.
Protestors accuse the president of rigging the vote to extend his 26-year rule over the former soviet country and are calling for new elections. They have been met with brutal treatment by police and security forces. More than 10,000 people, including Baginskaya, have been detained and more than 500 accounts of torture by state agents have been documented by the Minsk-based human rights group, Vyasna.
Despite several European countries, including the U. S. and Canada refusing to recognise the election results as legitimate, Lukashenko was sworn in during a secret ceremony on Sep. 23. The U. K. and Canada on Sep. 29 became the first major western powers to introduce sanctions—travel bans and asset freezes—against Lukashenko, his son and other senior officials over the fraudulent election and violence toward protestors.
Baginskaya, who was born in Minsk in 1946, was forced to retire from her career as a state geologist for her involvement in the fight for Belorussian independence. Now a matriarch of a family that spans four generations, she spoke to TIME on Oct. 1 about her experience protesting and hopes for the future:
What has pushed you to protest?
I have been arrested and fined for my activism many times beginning in 1988 until today.