Protesters clashed with police in Belarus for the third night in a row as police threatened to reinstate sanctions on suspects and a violent attack on protesters.
Afterwards, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the main challenger to the long-time president, said she had fled the country to protect her children, security forces fired rubber bullets and stunted grenades to disperse thousands of protesters in the capital Minsk.
The heavy presence of the police failed to limit the Protestants, who accused the streets Alexander Lukashenko of ascertaining the outcome of Sunday’s election.
Witnesses report that security forces arrested dozens of people and beat protesters in the street.
Shared in footage on social media, security forces were apparently smashing car windows and dragging people out of cars to attack them.
Agence France-Presse reporters saw riot police in front of press photographers, pulling memory cards out of their cameras and breaking lenses. An Associated Press photographer confirmed the claims.
Car horns blew in solidarity with the opposition, and people marched, clapped and shouted “go away”. Protestants said the departure of Tikhanovskaya would not stop her movement. “Our goal is to reverse the Lukashenko regime,” Yakov, a 51-year-old engineer, told AFP in Minsk.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wife of a prisoner blogger who won mass support in her bid against Lukashenko, appeared in a video on Tuesday morning saying she was leaving the country to neighboring Lithusania for the safety of her children.
“You know, I thought this whole campaign really pissed me off and gave me so much power that I could do anything,” she said in an emotional video. ‘But after all, I’m still the weak woman I was in the first place. I have made a very difficult decision for myself, ‘she said, adding that the political unrest was not worthy of anyone losing their lives.
“Children are the most important thing in life,” said Tikhanouskaya, who ran for office only because her husband, Syarhei, was imprisoned for his anti-government activism.
Belarusian state media released a second video in which Tikhanovskaya urged supporters not to protest. Her allies said it was taken under fire.
Linas Linkevicius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, said she was now safe in his country.
The EU condemned the outcome of Sunday’s by-elections, with 80% of the vote officially declared a landslide for Lukashenko. Tikhanovskaya, 37, came in second with 10% despite staging huge campaign rallies that observers said represented the biggest show of resistance ever seen at Lukashneko’s 26-year rule.
Brussels said the elections had been “neither free nor fair” and warned that it could punish those responsible for “violence, unjustified arrests and falsification of election results”.
It also accused Lukashenko’s government of “disproportionate and unacceptable violence” against Protestants and said it was straining its relations with Minsk.
The Belarusian government said on Tuesday that more than 2,000 people across the country had been detained for participating in unprovoked protests on Monday night and in the early hours of Tuesday. It added that 21 policemen were injured in clashes with Protestants, and five of them were hospitalized.
The previous day, the government reported more than 3,000 detainees and said 89 people were injured, including 39 lawmakers.
The first death toll was confirmed Monday when police said a man died after an explosive device went into his hand. On Tuesday, people laid flowers and white ribbon at the scene in Minsk, where he died, presumably by a rioting police officer.
‘You can shut down Tikhanovskaya, but you can not intimidate and shut down an entire nation. We will continue with peaceful protests and do not recognize Lukashenko as president, “said 24-year-old protester Denis Kruglyakov.
Human rights group Viasna also reported mass detention in the cities of Grodno, Brest and Vitebsk.
The internet remained blocked for the third consecutive day in what appeared to be an attempt by the authorities to make it harder for Protestants to coordinate their efforts and for people to find out what happened to their missing relatives. “We are still waiting for any sign or information,” said Lena Radomanova, who was searching for a friend who had disappeared.
The White House said it was “deeply concerned” about the violence. Poland offered to act as mediator between Lukashenko and the opposition and called for an EU summit.
Lukashenko has vowed not to allow Belarus to be “dismantled” and to dismiss the Protestants as pawns of foreign powers.
The Belarussian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it had “unforgettable” evidence of “interference from abroad.”
