Belarusians, who fled crackdown, fearful after diverted flight

Viachka Krasulin said he was arrested and brutally beaten all over his body by police in Belarus for attending a rally in August 2020 that challenged the results of an election keeping authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power.

Krasulin said security forces threatened to sodomize him with a truncheon for joining the protest After he complained to authorities about the police actions they opened a criminal case against him rather than the security forces and he decided to flee to neighboring Lithuania.

Until this week he and other Lukashenko opponents had thought they were safe from the sweeping government crackdown by moving to nearby European Union countries.