In 2008, Tatyana Novikova bought a wooden house near the border between Belarus and Lithuania. She chose the area carefully, she says. It’s next to a lake, untouched by industry and – crucially for the mathematician who worked on contamination models in the aftermath of Chernobyl – unaffected by the fallout from the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

But six months after she bought her dream home, Belarus announced that a new nuclear power station, financed by Russia, would be built nearby in Ostrovets.

“I’m completely devastated,” says Novikova, who says the government bypassed official planning regulations, ignored safety concerns and failed to carry out an adequate environmental impact assessment for the plant.

Her experience with Chernobyl, when radioactive contamination forced around 350,000 people to leave their homes and led to an unknown number of deaths, have left her cautious about nuclear power and distrustful of government safety promises.

“Another Chernobyl cannot happen,” she says.

Novikova has appealed to international environmental authorities to try to stop the NPP project, without any success. In the meantime authorities have already started work on construction.

"The problem is that [Belarusian president Alexander] Lukashenko does not give his citizens a voice," she says.

In a country which does not tolerate activism or public protest – the annual Chernobyl anniversary marches she organises often end in arrests – Novikova has taken her opposition abroad.



Tatiana Novikova at the Belarus Free Theatre, June 2014. Photograph: NS Photograph: NS

She is in London to raise awareness about the issue and hopes to spur the EU to put pressure on Belarus, as the plant would be 60km from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

A group of Belarusian activists, including the theatre company Belarus Free Theatre, have launched a petition against the power station – and have won support from some high-profile figures:

Another Chernobyl?! No thanks! Join me - sign petition to block dodgy new nuclear plant in Belarus http://t.co/lHTUIP09lp — Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) June 26, 2014

The petition cites several problems with the plant:



Construction was started before design plans were in place, and before a license had been issued



The design is experimental and has not been properly tested



An assessment by more that 15 independent experts found gaping holes in the government's environmental impact assessment

Novikova says the plans flaunt international regulations; Belarus is a signatory of the Espoo and Aarhus conventions, which specify environmental protections and monitor requirements such as public consultations over construction projects.

She approached the Aarhus committee in Maastricht in June, asking them to prevent the power plant because Belarus had violated the convention by not discussing the issue with concerned citizens. The committee came back to her with bad news; they would only issue what she calls a "caution of a caution" to Belarus, believing the government wouldn't listen anyway.



"Lukashenko says [the plant] is important for energy security," she says. "But if technology is so advanced, why not solve [the problem of] nuclear waste? We could improve our energy system by modernising gas plants, or using bioenergy from agriculture."

Presidential elections next year won’t change anything, she says, although she is hopeful that the conflict in Ukraine might change the politics of the region and ultimately loosen Lukashenko's power: "We and Ukraine have the same problem – [the Russian president, Vladimir] Putin."

The proposed new plant in Belarus will be funded by Russia. Belarus's official cost estimate is 9.4 billion US dollars, with one third of this to be spent by 2015. Its reactors would be constructed by the Russian company AtomEnergoMash.

Novikova is critical of the EU for not clamping down on nuclear power in the wake of the Fukishima nuclear disaster of 2011, and points out that some countries are steering away from nuclear energy. "Germany is phasing out of nuclear power; it produced 50% of all electricity generation from more renewable sources last year. The Italians said no in their nuclear referendum."

Like many Belarusian activists, Novikova has faced severe harassment. She was detained in her own home in Minsk during anti-nuclear protests. Her elderly mother has received prank calls which the police confirmed came from the KGB. In Russia, she was arrested and jailed for five days for trying to hand in an environmental petition to the Russian embassy.



She was also was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2011, and can't tell if she was contaminated from radiation exposure from Chernobyl. The WHO says the disaster will cause 50,000 new cases of the cancer among young people living in the worst-affected region. Increased rates of thyroid cancer are also being reported in Japan, post-Fukushima.

But she refuses to dwell on her own problems: "I’m still alive. Mine is not the worst case of persecution of people."



"What should I do? Stop my fight? I lost my health, now I have lost my house," she says. "Why should I run from this problem? I could go to the US or Europe, but it won’t change if I run – maybe I will, if my life will be in danger. Nobody knows. Right now, I have an opportunity to do something."

• This article was amended on 29 July to make clear that Belarus had not violated the Aarhus convention 'by not obtaining official planning permission', in Tatiana Novikova's eyes, but by 'not discussing the issue with concerned citizens'.

