Kalesnikava explained why she refused to meet Lukashenka in the KGB pre-trial detention center
Yury Dud, in an interview with Maria Kalesnikava, asked why she was not present at the meeting with Alexander Lukashenka in the KGB pre-trial detention center on October 10, 2020.
Maria said she wasn't there because she refused.
— The meeting was on Saturday. Apparently, on Friday night, they came to me… I really didn't like the very idea that at night they were taking me out into some strange corridors, I don't know, communicating with strange people who couldn't even introduce themselves, and at the same time asking me about the possibility of going to a meeting.
Dud asked if they told her who the meeting would be with. Kalesnikava said yes.
— This was a month after my arrest. It seemed to me that it was very, well, wrong. Wrong in the sense that, well, what kind of format is this? So, you put me in jail, then you come to me with some strange conversations at night. And I don't understand who you are. You want something from me. I even told the guards in prison then: «Listen, you are supposed to protect me from all these people. Since I'm already in prison, that's it, so no one else comes to me here anymore. I've had enough, I've already communicated enough». So, I refused.
Dud clarified whether she was the only one of the detained protest leaders who didn't go there?
— I think I'm the only one who was asked. And I think so because I'm almost certain that someone else would have also refused if they had such an opportunity, but I think no one even knew where they were all going.