Belarusians have been protesting since the August presidential election, after which the authorities declared Lukashenko the winner. The opposition considers the result manipulated, but the president rejects the fraud. A massive protest took place on Sunday in Minsk and other cities, and police in the capital arrested and blocked the city center. “Yesterday (Sunday) 633 people were brought in for questioning for violation of the law on participation in a mass assembly,” the Ministry of the Interior announced at Sunday’s events. Of those arrested, 363 people remain in custody, whose cases will be dealt with by the court.
According to agencies, up to 100,000 people marched through Minsk on Sunday, and the number of arrests was the highest since the fourth day after the election, when police ended brutal interventions. Footage of Sunday’s events showed men in balaclavas and civilians armed with batons and persecuting protesters in the city center, the AFP agency reported. Larger protests also took place in Grodno or Brest.
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An opposition leader was allegedly detained and taken away
The Tut.by server wrote, referring to the witness, that unknown people detained one of the leading opposition figures, Maryja Kalesnikav, in the center of Minsk, took her away in a van, and that Kalesnikavová did not answer the phone. According to Reuters, her collaborators are verifying the report. Likewise, the Belarusian police originally announced that they were verifying information that Kalesnikava had been abducted, the RIA Novosti agency reported.
Kalesnikava acted as the head of the opposition politician, Viktar Babaryka, who was not allowed to run by the election commission and who was detained by the police for alleged fraud.
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Interfax later said that the Belarusian police denied the arrest of Kalesnikova. However, according to Interfax, its collaborators from the opposition coordination council announced that they could not contact not only this politician, but also the other two members of the council. “It is not known where they are and what they are with,” Interfax quoted Pavel Latušek, a member of the board’s management.
Former director of the International Civic Belarus Association Marina Puzdrová commented on the situation in the broadcast. According to her, people in Belarus no longer have confidence in the police. “They can’t feel completely safe because they don’t know if they’ll call the police for some provocateurs, if they won’t start themselves,” she said.
The biggest concern for residents is that they never know where the detained protesters are being transported or by whom. “It is a targeted detention of activists who may be liable or have social credit under the regime. It is often not clear where people are taken, their relatives are frightened and then the sentences for unauthorized participation in protests are imposed, “explained Puzdrová.
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“Elections”
Anti-regime demonstrations in Belarus erupted following the announcement of Lukashenko’s landslide victory in the August 9 presidential election and have been going on for four weeks. Many people are convinced that the result was falsified and that in fact the opposition candidate Sviatlana Cichanouska won. Lukashenko denies allegations of electoral fraud.
OSCE observers did not supervise the elections and did not admit even the most important opposition candidates, including her husband Cichanouská.
The opposition demands that Lukashenko relinquish his presidency and release all political prisoners, to hold new elections and to investigate the police violence of the first days after 9 August.
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