After a weekend of mass protests in Belarus and amid calls for a general strike, President Alexander Lukashenko has to shut down the Internet again in his country.
Lukashenko’s resolve to disconnect millions of others was not the result of the largest opposition demonstration in Belarusian history, but because staff at an army truck factory booed him while he was delivering a speech.
Lukashenko had traveled to the factory by helicopter on Monday morning to prevent protesters from filling the streets of Minsk. It had even been decided that the MZKT factory would come with the maximum number of unwavering workers.
But despite Lukashenko’s efforts to get angry with him, the crowd at the factory began to suppress the president’s speech with cries of “license” and “resignation.”
Embarrassed by public humiliation and when video clips of the incident began to be shared online, Lukashenko’s government disabled the Internet.
Monday morning’s power outage “seems technically consistent with the prolonged ban that followed the election in Belarus,” VICE News Alp Toker, Director of Internet Tracking NetBlocks, told VICE News Alp Toker.
Last week, Lukashenko’s government blocked large swas of the Internet, adding all social media and top news websites, following a debatable election in which Lukashenko won by overwhelming majority.
The government claimed that the first Internet outage was due to foreign interference or technical failures, but NetBlocks’ investigation, first reported through VICE News, revealed that the outage had taken place at the target and would have required a lot of planning.
By the middle of last week, the government had lifted restrictions, but on Monday, after a weekend of mass protests and calls for general strike, the widespread blackout was imposed.
READ: Belarus closed the Internet and tried to make it look like an accident
The integrity of last week’s vote has been through opposition teams in Belarus, as well as through several foreign governments, in addition to Germany and the UK.
Anger against Lukashenko, which has been in force for 26 years and has been described as Europe’s last dictator, has risen, culminating on Sunday with a demonstration of mass opposition in Minsk, which the independent news Tut.by described as “the world’s greatest.” history of independent Belarus.
Coverage: Supporters of the Belarusian opposition meet in the center of Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday 16 August 2020. Opposition supporters whose protests have rocked the country for a week aim to organize a primary march in the Belarusian capital. Protests began to be delayed on August 9 at the close of the presidential election. (Photo AP / Sergei Grits)