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Polish-Based Blogger Becomes Driving Force in Belarusian Protests

Daria Yurieva

   WARSAW - Five years ago, a Belarusian teenager studying film in Poland
   set up a YouTube channel to show videos that he made and poke fun at
   his country's longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko.

   After tangling with YouTube copyright laws, the
   student,StsyapanPutsila, shifted hisNextachannel and his tactics in
   2018 to Telegram, the messaging app. Itsencryption technologies have
   made it wildly popular in Russia, Iran and other countries whose
   governments have suppressed independent media and communications.

   Fast forward two years, andPutsila'sNexta-- taken from the Belarusian
   word for "someone" and pronounced "nekhta" -- hasgrownin popularity,
   first and foremost among Belarusians seeking uncensored information in
   a country whose state-run media usually serve only as a mouthpiece for
   the government.

   A mix of user-submitted photos and videos, forwarded news items, biting
   opinion, and instructions for street protesters, the channel's Telegram
   subscribers now total more than 2 million,making it one of the biggest
   information sources for Belarusians.

   And withprotests againstLukashenkoshowing no sign of relenting a month
   after a deeply disputed election in which he claimed to have won a
   sixth term,Nextais at the vanguard -- both in documenting the
   demonstrations and in encouraging them.

   'Abitlikerevolutionaries'

   "Even before the start of the Belarusian revolution, we were a
   nontraditional media [outlet]," Putsila, 22, said in a telephone
   interview with RFE/RL's Russian ServiceThursday. "We did not have a
   centralized website on theinternet -- we are a modern information
   channel, mainly for young people."

   Since the protests began, "we have changed a little and become a bit
   like revolutionaries, because people want that from us," he said.

   "We are asked to publish plans describing what to do, because there are
   simply no clear leaders in Belarus, especially ones with such an
   audience," Putsila said. "If there had been,it is clear that theywould
   have been immediately detained. Now we not only inform, but to some
   extent also coordinate people."

   With a team of six working out of a community center Warsaw, Putsila,
   who also uses the pseudonym Stepan Svetlov, pushes out dozens of items
   on the Telegram channel.

   OnMonday, one day after tens of thousands of Belarusians surged into
   Minsk's streets for the 29th day of protests,Nextapublished -- in
   Russian, which is spoken by nearly everyonein Belarus -- a statement of
   support from European Union leaders and news items about the
   disappearance of one of the country's leading opposition figures.

   Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya spoke
   viavideolinkto the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
   (PACE)Tuesday.

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