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Belarus’s opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has called for peaceful rallies across the country after being forced to leave Lithuania in the wake of a disputed election.
“Do not stay on the sidelines,” she said, proposing a broad council to work on the transfer of power.
Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, but Sunday’s presidential vote was condemned by the EU and the US.
Protests have erupted across the country, urging him to stop.
Some 6,700 people were arrested in the wake of the elections, and many spoke of torture at the hands of the security services.
As protests continued for a sixth day and walkouts of state-owned factories grew on Friday, EU foreign ministers held an emergency video meeting and decided to prepare new sanctions on Belarusian officials responsible “for violence and counterfeiting”.
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Reuters
These workers at the Azot company in Grodno joined in a protest on Friday
Amnesty International said accounts of released detainees suggested “widespread torture”.
Russia said on Friday that Belarus had returned 32 suspected monsters that had been detained since last month. Authorities in Belarus said the men were in the country to destabilize Sunday’s election, while Russia said they were just getting through. Details of their release are not yet clear.
Ms Tikhanovskaya was detained herself for seven hours on Monday night when she went to register a complaint about the election before being forced into exile.
Protesters marched past KGB security service building on Friday chanting “let them go”
The Central Election Commission says Mr Lukashenko won 80.1% of the vote and Ms Tikhanovskaya 10.12%.
But Ms Tikhanovskaya notes that, where votes were well counted, she won support from 60% to 70%. She has called on mayors to organize “peaceful mass meetings” on Saturday and Sunday.
‘I begged him to stop, but he kept going.’
By Abdujalil Abdurasulov, BBC News, Minsk
Sergiy was arrested Monday. Riot police threw him into a police car and began torturing him.
They kept asking who the organizer was and every time he said there was no one, they electrocuted him with a stun gun. For every word he tried to say, they hit him with answers on batons.
“The scariest part was that these people knew no bounds,” he said.
“You understand that you are completely without rights, that they could do anything they wanted. The pain was unbearable and I begged him to stop, but he went on.”
After hours of torture, Sergiy could barely breathe. Officials called an ambulance and sent him to the hospital. Otherwise, he would not have survived the infamous Okrestina detention center.
Many have suffered violent casualties and the abuse of prisoners who remain in prisons continues. Volunteers outside the detention center in Minsk asked us Friday to be calm and encouraged people not to clap and sing to support the detainees. They say that otherwise those who stay behind the prison walls will get revenge.
Prisoners were released Friday from the infamous Okrestina detention center in Minsk on Friday, revealing their murdered and swollen bodies.
“They beat people cruelly, with impunity, and arrested everyone. We were forced to stand in the garden all night. We could hear women being beaten. I do not understand such cruelty,” one man told the BBC. his bruising.
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Medics treat people when they leave Okrestina detention center on Friday
Belarus’s Interior Minister Yuri Karayev said he was taking responsibility for the victims and wanted to apologize to the victims.
Russian journalist Nikita Telizhenko wrote a harrowing report of his three days in prison, detailing people lying on the floor of a detention center, stacked on top of each other, in a pool of blood and excrement. They were not allowed to use the toilet for hours on end or even change position.
When prisoners left the infamous Okrestina detention center, they were allowed to reveal their wounds
What does opposition leader suggest?
Ms Tikhanovskaya, who arrived in Lithuania on Tuesday, said in her video message that authorities in Belarus should stop violence and “engage in dialogue” and that their supporters should sign an online petition asking for a vote.
In a separate message, she praised Belarusians for showing “we are a majority and this country belongs to us, to the nation instead of one man”. She then calls out:
- a Coordinating Council composed of “civil society activists, respected Belarusians and professionals” to secure a transfer of power
- involvement of staff of industrial companies, trade unions and other organizations for the society
- the international community and European states would assist in organizing dialogue with authorities in Belarus
- authorities must free all prisoners, remove police and troops from the streets and prosecute those who ordered violence.
Ms Tikhanovskaya, 37, only entered the presidential race after her husband was arrested and blocked from registering to vote. Her statements on Friday were far from her last message on Tuesday, when she said she left Belarus for the sake of her children and spoke of herself as “a weak woman”.
More on the protests in Belarus
What’s going on on the ground?
Belarusians returned to the streets of several cities on Friday. In the western city of Grodno, workers gathered outside a management office, demanding fresh elections, and car workers gathering in large numbers at the Maz factory in Minsk. Walkouts were also reported at a number of other factories.
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Reuters
Protesters including tractor workers carried a banner mocking the president, dismissing Protestants as sheep
Mr Lukashenko, who had earlier fired protesters for condemning sheep “trying to blow up workers” and spoke of walkers involving 20 people.
Tractor workers who attended a large march in Minsk on Friday carried a banner reading: “We are not sheep, we are not herds, we are not small people … there are not 20 of us, but 16,000.”
EU foreign ministers voted on Friday to draw up a list of people who should be targeted for sanctions. The bloc, which has condemned Sunday’s vote as “neither free nor fair”, has previously imposed sanctions, but demanded the measures four years ago when President Lukashenko released other detainees.
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Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said sanctions should be imposed “until free and transparent elections are held in Belarus with the participation of international observers”. Poland has promised to loosen visa restrictions on its neighbor to support civil society.
Ahead of the EU emergency meeting, Belarus’ Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said his country was ready for “constructive and objective” talks with other countries.
