Andrei Gnyot says he fears for his life after organising alliance of athletes to oppose country’s dictator in 2020
A court in Serbia has ruled that a Belarusian activist who was instrumental in organising an alliance of athletes in opposition to the country’s dictator,
Yelena Leuchanka, a basketball player who previously played for the national team, and who is a friend of Gnyot, said: “We had over 2,000 athletes and people related to sport sign our letter. He was really supportive when it came to helping with the message and creating videos.” She said the opposition from athletes was particularly irritating for Lukashenko, who liked to see himself as the patron of sport.
Gnyot left Belarus in 2021 and made a new home in Thailand, but frequently travelled to shoot commercials. He said he was in Serbia last August to shoot an advert for the French food company Danone and had not encountered any problems. He arrived again in late October on a commission to shoot an advertisement for the communications company Tele2.
Serbia, under the authoritarian leader Aleksandar Vučić, has attempted to perform a geopolitical balancing act, keen to eventually join the EU but also retaining friendly relations with Russia and Belarus, even after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In the past, Belarusian authorities have gone to great lengths to gain access to those they want to prosecute. In 2021, the country’s air forcewhen it briefly crossed the country’s airspace, in order to arrest the opposition blogger Roman Protasevich, who was onboard.
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