MINSK, Belarus – Crowds of demonstrators in Belarus took to the streets and thousands of employees piled up outdoors in commercial factories on Thursday to denounce the police crackdown on the protests following a disputed election that prolonged the 26-year government of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
In the morning, a lot of women formed long “rows of solidarity” in several districts of the capital, Minsk. Many were dressed in white and wore flowers and portraits of those who enjoyed detention, protests that began shortly after Sunday’s vote, which they said was rigged.
Human chains evolved throughout the day, filling the main squares and central avenues as motorists honked their horns in support. In Minsk and many other cities, thousands of factory employees also spoke out against police violence, raising the possibility of movements in a new challenge for the government.
Amid growing public dismay, dozens of military and police veterans posted videos throwing their uniforms and badges in the trash. Several popular presenters from Belarusian public television stations have resigned.
Nearly 7,000 more people were arrested and many people injured in the crackdown by demonstrators protesting the official effects that Lukashenko won 80% of the vote and that his main opposition opponent won only 10%. Police interrupted protests with stun grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets and violent beatings.
“Belarusians have noticed the depraved face of this government. I spoke to my husband and voted for Lukashenko. And that’s what they gave me in the end: I can’t put my relatives in prisons,” said Valentina Chailytko, 49, whose husband and son were arrested during Sunday’s protests. You were unable to download data about your location.
A protester was killed in Minsk on Monday after an explosive device that attempted to throw the police into his hand, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Some media reports have questioned this official version. Neither the ministry nor the media has any evidence.
Thousands more gathered at the place where he died on Thursday, many with flowers. European ambassadors also deposited flowers in the day’s pre-date.
Authorities also showed that a detainee had died in the town of Gomel in the southeast of the country, but the cases of his death were unclear.
Hundreds of doctors joined the protests Thursday in Minsk and many other cities.
“There is a sense that a war is being waged, but it is a war that opposes us,” said Mikhail Portnov, a 33-year-old general practitioner. “We doctors see the value of this war like no other. We were in a position for violence, but the brutality of it went beyond all limits.
Unprecedented opposition and public unrest motivated by the painful economic consequences of Lukashenko’s coronavirus pandemic and categorical rejection of the epidemic as a “psychosis.” The vote and brutality of the repression that followed – remarkable even for the reign of Lukashenko’s iron fist – wounded anger. The former 65-year-old state farm chief has been in force since 1994 and has been dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by the West for his crackdown on dissent.
“You can see the elections in the streets,” said Andrei Gubarevich, a 32-year-old engineer, who joined a demonstration in Minsk. “Lukashenko has already lost.”
The Belarusian Commission of Inquiry has launched an unscrupulous investigation into the organization of mass unrest, an indication that the government would possibly begin to impose such fees on some detainees. Fees can also result in sentences of up to 15 years for convicts.
The ministry said 103 police officers have been injured since Sunday and 28 of them have been hospitalized. In Minsk and the western city of Baranovichi, others crushed traffic police with their cars on Wednesday before being arrested.
The brutal crackdown on protests has generated grievances in the West.
European Union foreign ministers will meet on Friday to discuss a response, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the 27-nation bloc would “increase pressure” on Belarus. “Brutal movements and arrests of nonviolent protesters and even hounds in Belarus are not appropriate in Europe in the 21st century,” he told reporters in Berlin.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the election was neither lax nor fair and suggested that the government join the violence against nonviolent protesters.
“I am convinced that the EU and the US fully share the same considerations about what happened and what is happening in Belarus and I am hopeful that we can work together to achieve better bottom line for people. Belarus,” Pompeo said on Thursday a stopover in Slovenia.
Police gave the impression of narrowing their reaction on Wednesday. In many minsk neighborhoods, exclusively female “solidarity lines” remained unanswered for some time before police dispersed some of them without violence. Similar non-violent protests were observed on Thursday in the capital and other locations, but police refrained from dispersing them without delay.
Also on Thursday, many factories across the country, coupled with the huge trucking factories in Minsk and Zhodino, organized rallies to protest the crackdown and ask for a recount of the vote. Many shouted, “Go away!” to request Lukashenko’s resignation.
In an assembly with staff at a factory in Grodno, near the Polish border, the local police leader apologized for the violent crackdown, according to the news portal tut.by.
Protests have spread even though the demonstration lacks leaders. The main opponent of the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, suddenly made the impression in neighboring Lithuania on Tuesday and asked her supporters to avoid protests in a video that her affiliates said she recorded under pressure from the police before her departure. The 37-year-old ex-husband joined the race to update her husband, an opposition blogger who has been in jail since May.
Lukashenko mocked the political opposition as a “sheep” manipulated through foreign masters and promised to continue to adopt a business stance opposed to the protests.
But that didn’t deter much.
“Protests will only grow,” said Anna Shestakova, a 25-year-old protester in Minsk. “You might lie to some, but you can’t idiot everyone.”
– Associate press editors Daria Litvinova and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to Moscow and Matthew Lee in Bled, Slovenia.