Sunday nights in Minsk are now inevitable.
An explosion of police violence to end hours of nonviolent marching – that those who stayed until what becomes a bitter end pass from home with the deafening sound of grenades in their ears, the adrenaline rush of fleeing rubber bullets – if they leave home.
Sunday’s initial estimates were more than a hundred people, but that number may increase.
There’s a video of police officers walking into apartments and beating other people while they ask for mercy. In a police state, there’s nowhere to hide.
No, most of the Belarusian population needs this regime to disappear.
The spirit of those on the street is at odds with police cruelty. At other times, Belarusians will tell you “we are a nonviolent people. “
They march through the tens of thousands, more than 100,000 in Minsk this Sunday, waving their red and white flags, usually masked, while for a moment the COVID-19 wave also crawls here, but the other Belarusian people have other concerns.
Today’s march called the “ultimatum of the people”.
They had three undeniable demands from the beginning: that President Alexander Lukashenko resigned, that there were new elections and that all political prisoners be released. These requests were taken care of.
In exile, presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called a general strike on Monday, but it would possibly not take off.
Many times I have been told that other people are afraid, that they have families to feed.
The strike leaders we were in contact with hesitated to reveal their plans. The secret conversations on Telegram are silent. Bullying works, for public servants.
We spent a few hours in police custody on Saturday. They were civilians, for whom we count our blessings.
For many Belarusians, courtesy is not a hallmark of detention centres. As we waited, other people began to infiltrate the dribs and the bored.
“Druzhinniki? The woman at the main table asked and they nodded. It’s an old Soviet phenomenon where the police volunteer”
Squads make arrests, but they can monitor and this regime likes to keep an eye on everyone and everything.
The first organization of older men. They seemed to have grown up under public television and can settle for some extra money.
Perhaps the most unexpected were the younger cohorts, smiling with their teammates, sharing the team’s red bracelets.
He intends to volunteer. If that is the case, it is obvious that there are still a few beyond the prestige security quo that are ready for the political quo prestige.
The call for a street replacement is strong and insistent: every Sunday’s impressive involvement is a testament to this.
It is almost incomprehensible that other progressive and democratically focused people in central Europe have the kind of leadership their neighbors, indeed in the West, can even imagine.
But dictatorships have deep foundations. And for now in Belarus, they hold on.