see url:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-21/telegram-messaging-app-crucial-belarus-protests
And Nexta and Nexta Live...I wonder if they have anything lined up in
Belarus for this weekend...
Quote<<<
Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against
Belarus’ authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram messaging
app. They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with
business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement.
“Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom.
Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so it’s important not to
slow down,” a message in one of Telegram’s so-called channels read
Tuesday. “Morning. Expanding the strike … 11:00. Supporting the Kupala
[theater] ... 19:00. Gathering at the Independence Square.”
The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the
unprecedented mass protests that have rocked Belarus since Aug. 9, when
election officials announced that President Alexander Lukashenko — whom
some call “Europe’s last dictator” — had won a landslide victory to
extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.
Peaceful protesters who poured onto the streets of the capital, Minsk,
and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and
beatings from police. The opposition candidate, schoolteacher Sviatlana
Tsikhanouskaya, left for Lithuania — under duress, her campaign said —
and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost
no access to independent online news outlets or social media and
protesters seemingly without a leader.
That’s where Telegram — which often remains available despite internet
outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been
used in other protest movements — came in. Some of its channels helped
unconnected, scattered rallies mature into well-coordinated action.
The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now
post updates, videos and photos of the turmoil sent in from users,
locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists
and calls for new demonstrations — something Belarusian opposition
leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves. Tens of thousands
of people all across the country have responded to those calls.
>>>End of Quote
