This is the largest number of disposal recorded in a single day since the protests began. The total number of people detained since August is believed to be more than 25,000, according to Wisna.
Sunday marked the fourteenth week in a row that protesters have taken to the streets demanding the resignation of Lukashenko, who has ruled the country for 26 years.
Mass speculation has led to the death of Roman Bondarenko, a 311-year-old anti-government protester who was beaten to death by security forces after he died Thursday at a hospital in Minsk, protesters and members of his family said.
Opponents held up pictures and signs with the words “I’m going out”, the last known words before Bondarenko’s death. He was beaten on Minsk’s “Square of Change”, which was the final point for all Minsk protesters on Sunday. Bondarenko was a painter who lived in Minsk and served in the military.
His sister, Volga Kucharenka, said in a video Thursday that Bondarenko had been shot in the central police department, or on the way to the department. He said he was taken to hospital from Minsk’s Central Police Department on Wednesday night with serious injuries. He said he died the next day at 8 p.m., local time.
“Tonight I learned that my brother had died in the hospital after being in the intensive care unit all day,” Kucharenka said in a video on Thursday.
“Roman didn’t provoke a fight, I know for sure, I know from eyewitnesses. Later everything went bad … I made this video to let people know what happens. My brother was a calm and positive person, he always Avoid conflict. “
Minsk, on Sunday during a protest crowd and traffic control, police had used tear gas and water cannon to disperse. The video shows the police knocked violently beating opponents at the supermarket. Other videos show police detaining people and taking them away in police vehicles.
Detainees were also detained in the cities of Navrudak, Babruisk, Witsebsk, Hommel and Svetlahorsk, according to Visna.
At least 23 journalists have been detained across the country, the Belarusian Association of Journalists said in a statement on Sunday.
A statement from the Belarusian Association of Journalists stated that “police detained protesters in Minsk, Vitebsk, Hrodna and Pinsk. We know of 23 arrests.”
Former presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhnovskaya, who now lives outside Belarus, called Bondarenko a “hero of the protests” who were killed by “allies of the regime” and urged Belarusians to continue protesting peacefully.
“He was an innocent victim of an inhumane system that considered people’s lives a cost of energy,” Tikhnovskaya said on the Telegram. “We all understand that any peaceful person can end up in his place.”
“Like millions of Belarusians, I sympathize with Roman’s family. We will not forgive this murder. We will write Roman’s name as a hero in the history of the new Belarus.”
Reacting to Bandarenko’s death, Marie Strauss-Kahn, Amnesty International’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said authorities in Belarus should launch an immediate, thorough, impartial and independent investigation.
“If there is any suspicion that he was beaten by security forces officers, like hundreds of other peaceful protesters, they were attacked just to raise their voices,” Struther said. “Instead of taking him to the hospital, the police arrested him and took him into custody.”
“The time has come to end the reign of terror and bring down all those responsible for this crime.”
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Belarusian authorities to release political prisoners they have detained, “use their human rights and fundamental freedoms to peacefully protest, call for free and fair elections, and for national dialogue.” Advocates an end to the current crisis. “
Pompeo said these political prisoners have been subject to harsh and fatal detention conditions, including credible reports of torture. “They are one of thousands of people who have been unjustly detained since the beginning of the violent uprising.”
“The United States stands with those who have been detained and not counted, those who have been killed, and those who have exercised their right to choose their leaders peacefully in free and fair elections,” he said.
.
