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In Belarus, demonstrations against the ruler Alexander Lukashenko continue unabated. In the capital, Minsk, on Monday older people and students in particular protested in a nationwide strike over Lukashenko’s resignation; the ruler has now described the protesters as “terrorists.”
At the beginning of a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Lukashenko said of the strikers: “These are the actions of organized criminal groups with signs of terrorism. We are gradually facing a terrorist threat.” The day before, a national general strike had begun, with which the opposition wants to increase pressure on the authoritarian head of state.
Almost 600 arrests in a single day
According to the Interior Ministry, the police had arrested 581 people on the sidelines of the strike, 486 of them in Minsk alone. There were protests and arrests again on Tuesday.
Workers at numerous factories joined the strike on Monday to back the demands of opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya. Tichanovskaya had called on Lukashenko to step down last Sunday, to end violence against protesters and free political prisoners. Lukashenko ignored the ultimatum.
“Support all those who go on strike for our future”
According to Tichanovskaya, employees at the Grodno Azot chemical company, a Minsk car factory, and workers at several tractor factories in the capital were also unemployed. These people are under “colossal pressure,” Tichanovskaya said. “Support everyone who goes on strike for our future,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging service.
Meanwhile, political adviser Vitaly Shkliarov was released according to a report from the Belarusian news website tut.by. It should already be gone. Schkliarov, who has both Belarusian and American citizenship, spent months in solitary confinement in Belarus. He had been accused of helping to organize mass riots before the elections.
Schkliarow was arrested at the airport when he was visiting his seriously ill mother. He has always denied all the accusations. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had last spoken in a phone conversation with Lukashenko to call for Schkliarov’s release.
Members of the opposition in Belarus have been organizing mass protests since the August 9 presidential elections, which were overshadowed by massive accusations of fraud. According to official information, Lukashenko won the elections with more than 80 percent of the votes and Tichanowskaya only received about ten percent. The EU called the vote neither free nor fair and a few weeks ago it imposed new sanctions against the country’s politicians.
