Teachers in Belarus are targeted for links with 'extremist' group, says rights group

TALLINN, Estonia -- Dozens of teachers in Belarus have been detained or interrogated by authorities as part of the country's wide-ranging crackdown on dissent, a respected local human rights organization said Wednesday.

Pavel Sapelka, a spokesman for the Viasna rights group told The Associated Press that moves against teachers began in September and that all those detained or questioned have taken part in an online teacher-education project that the KGB, Belarus' main security agency, declared to be an extremist group in August.

The project, named Adukavanka, gave guidance on technological innovations in education and offered suggested lesson plans. Hundreds of teachers joined.

Sapelka did not give precise figures for how many teachers have been detained or questioned.

In a post on the Telegram messaging service, Adukavanka advised all subscribers to its channel who live in Belarus to cancel their registrations. “Strong education is done with brains, not with truncheons,” the post said.

Belarus has suppressed opposition and independent media for three decades under President Alexander Lukashenko, but the efforts to crush dissent intensified sharply in 2020 when nationwide protests arose after a presidential election whose disputed results gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

More than 65,000 people were arrested in the crackdown, many of them beaten by police. All significant opposition figures are now in prison or have fled the country.