Alexander Lukashenko comments on Pavel Durov's arrest

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko commented on the arrest of entrepreneur and co-founder of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov in France at the Republican Pedagogical Council, BELTA reports.

The head of state mentioned this issue in the context of education, because many of those who did poorly at school later begin to criticize the government and say that somewhere in the West, for example, in France, it is better than in their homeland.

"Yesterday we saw how it is better in France. And I do not blame them. They are doing the right thing. If you are guilty, go and answer. But why should you make claims against us when we begin to defend ourselves using the same methods as they do?" the Belarusian leader noted.

Alexander Lukashenko said that Russian President Vladimir Putin once told him about one of his conversations with French President Emmanuel Macron. It was after the elections in Belarus, and the French leader mentioned the Belarusian topic in that telephone conversation with the President of Russia: "Look, you have a friend there in Belarus, political prisoners... (this conversation was after the elections)".

At the same time, in France itself, the "yellow vests" were raging. "Remember, they were killing there, not looking at whether a woman or not. And Putin says: "And I tell him: Emmanuel, look at what's going on in France." You, he says, indiscriminately beat everyone there - women and others, and you reproach Lukashenko. And he says: "But we have democracy, we can do this. And he has a dictatorship there."

"You know, democracy is "you can throw a woman's head against the wall, blood spurts in all directions." In America, you can strangle a black person and nothing will happen. And today Durov was arrested. That is why I want you to feel this (the essence of Western democracy - BELTA note) and put it into the heads of our schoolchildren," added Alexander Lukashenko, addressing the teachers.