Some 350,000 Lithuanians formed a 34 km human chain on Sunday afternoon to show support for the protesters in Belarus and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has sought refuge in the country.
The chain was formed from the center of the capital Vilnius to the Belarusian border.
“I am proud that my country has come here to support Belarus,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said during a speech at the border. “We are not indifferent and we will never be indifferent.”
The formation of the human mark was also a tribute to a similar protest, exactly 31 years ago. Then two million people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a human chain in protest against the government of the former Soviet Union.
Belarusian government threatens to crack down
For the thirteenth day in a row, people in Belarus took to the streets en masse on Sunday to demonstrate against President Alexander Lukashenko’s fraudulent election results.
The Belarusian government has said it will crack down on banned demonstrations in the country. The military has taken over the security of the national monuments from the police and all protesters on and around these monuments will be removed by the military.
The threats are yet another attempt by Lukashenko to regain control of his country. Earlier this month, the president won the presidential election with more than 80 percent of the vote, but hardly anyone assumes that the election was fair.
– .
