ASSOCIATED PRESS
Riot police officers arrest a protester at a demonstration of Belarusian opposition supporters to protest the official effects of the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, today. Protests demanding the resignation of the Belarusian president have epped daily since the presidential elections on 9 August, according to the authorities. earned him a sixth term.
KYIV, Ukraine – More than 100,000 protesters calling for the resignation of Belarus’ authoritarian president marched in the capital Minsk today as the protests that rocked the country entered its sixth week.
Many members of the crowd, which the human rights organization Viasna estimated at more than 150,000, carried posters of Russia, reflecting considerations about Monday’s assembly between President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It would be his first face-to-face contact since the riots broke out in Belarus after the presidential election on 9 August, which said Lukashenko had a sixth term with 80% support. Protesters and some investigators say the effects were rigged.
Putin said he was in a position to send Russian police to Belarus if protests turned violent, fueling fears that Moscow might use political dissent as an excuse to annex his neighbor as he did in Crimea in 2014. foresees definitive political, economic and military ties, Lukashenko has continually expressed his considerations that Putin needs Russia to fully absorb Belarus.
Some note that Lukashenko is entering the assembly in a weak position and that Putin can simply take credit for this to verify it and relieve him of his power.
“Lukashenko has not been able to show Putin that he is on stage and has extinguished the flame of protests, which can push the Kremlin to seek a stage and a candidate for election,” independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich told The Associated Press.
Lukashenko has ruled the Eastern European country from another 9. 5 million people with an iron hand since 1994, suppressing the opposition and the media. police abuse.
The internal ministry said more than 400 more people were arrested in Minsk on Sunday. The ministry also reported demonstrations in 16 other cities, adding Brest, where police had used water cannons as opposed to a crowd of several thousand people.
“The source of the force in Belarus is the people, not Lukashenko and the Kremlin,” the posters wearing some protesters in Minsk said. “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you,” read another one carrying pictures of Lukashenko. and Putin.
On Sunday, police installed rows of barbed wires and prisoner-sending cars and deployed thousands of infantrymen to block the center’s dominance of protesters, but protesters piled up in the middle and marched into the presidential apartment on the outskirts of the city.
Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, has rejected any concession or attempted mediation and has continually accused Belarus’s western neighbors of running to overthrow his government. presidential residence.
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