Fake News: CNN Tries Passing Off Belarusian Munitions Depot as ‘Possible Prison Camp’

The best part has to be where the CNN ‘journalist’ says he turned to a “western intelligence official” for help with his report and he agreed a detention camp was “possible”:

It’s obviously a military site, likely a munitions storage. To anyone who isn’t insane or doesn’t have an agenda that is exactly how the place looks and feels like. There is nothing whatsoever non-congruent about a munitions depot being under guard and mushroom pickers told to go elsewhere.

Hilariously in a number of places CNN as much as admits there is nothing to their own story:

These are the indications, according to videos seen by CNN and witness statements, of a possible prison camp for political dissidents, recently constructed around an hour’s drive from the Belarusian capital Minsk, near the settlement of Novokolosovo. It sits on the site of a Soviet-era missile storage facility, which spans over 200 acres. It is unclear how much of the site has been refurbished.

It “sits on the site of a Soviet-era missile storage facility” because it is a missile storage facility.

Belarus’s opposition activists have voiced fears for some time that the authoritarian regime might resort to crude detention camps, if conventional prisons fill up. Concerns are also rising about another wave of crackdowns and arrests in response to demonstrations marking the August 9 anniversary of the disputed presidential election that sparked last year’s protest movement. Further unrest may surround a constitutional referendum planned for later this year or early 2022.

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, viewed the footage and told CNN: “It is not surprising that [Lukashenko] is trying to build something like a regular prison camp, because a new wave of protest will come up anyway. It can be triggered by his statements, it can be triggered by the economic situation. But it will come. He understands that, and he also wants to be prepared more than last year in 2020.”

CNN has not been able to access the interior of the facility near Novokolosovo, and there are no signs the camp has yet housed prisoners. A western intelligence official told CNN the use of the facility as a prison camp was “possible,” although they did not have direct evidence to that effect. 

Locals in the town of Novokolosovo refer to the facility as “the camp.” One resident, told to leave the area by military guards recently when he approached the site, said: “My friend Sasha, a builder, told me they refurbished this place. There are three levels of barbed wire, and its electrified. I was picking mushrooms here when a military man came up to me and said that I can’t walk there.” Two other witnesses also observed military patrols.