Elections in Belarus: Shocked by violence, people lose their fear

The sight of police brutality up close shocked Belarusians, first in clashes with protesters and then as accounts spread of cruelty against those taken to detention center.

A 25-year-old man died in custody after being arrested on Sunday. His mother said he stood for hours in a police car.

A street very close to my house in Minsk was in the heart of one of the confrontations between police and Protestants this week.

Stung grenades went off and people screamed when policemen hit them with batons. The screams were so loud that they drowned out the sound of grenades.

Depression and anger

The protests are unusual in their scale as people in dozens of towns, cities and even villages rise up and call on the main opposition figure, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, to be recognized as the winner of Sunday’s presidential election.

I watched as young men and women walked past my windows for safety, taking a break from the collisions before returning to face the police.

My female neighbors try to stop their sons and husbands from participating in the nightly protests, worrying about their safety.

Some 7,000 people have been arrested and you do not have to protest to be arrested. My friend’s son, a university lecturer, was randomly detained before the election and spent three days in a cell. The prisoner who died in Gomel in southern Belarus, Alexander Vikhor, was on his way to see his girlfriend, according to his mother.

The Interior Ministry stressed that its measures were “adequate” and pointed out that more than 100 police officers had been injured and 28 treated in hospital. There have been deliberate attempts by drivers to overtake traffic police and “legislators have used weapons” to stop them, it states.

People here are angry: with police, authorities and above all President Alexander Lukashenko. No one I’ve talked to has any support for what police do.

They watch the Belarusian leader talk on TV and laugh around him. They ask him what he thinks will happen next and how he will live with himself.

Screaming from balconies

A friend tried to travel across Minsk, which is now difficult because several metro stations in the center are close. When they complained to metro staff on the platform, they apologized and blamed the situation on Mr Lukashenko.

He has dismissed the majority of Protestants as unemployed as a criminal past and has instructed the government to find jobs for them.

Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. And this has made people further angry.

Belarusians have been shouting, swearing and shouting at police from their balconies to leave. Police responded by firing rubber bullets at the balconies.

Women have rushed to riot police, begging them to be civilians, and begging them to stop their attacks.

There have been before – in 2006 and 2010, although the protests were smaller in scale. But the level of brutality is shocking and new. Protesters and often passers-by have been targeted by people dressed in black, wearing balaclavas and without insight or uniform. This also happened with a BBC team.

Although people here are opposed, they are also worried about the future.

Further sanctions on Belarus would raise prices in a country where wages are already low. There is also the fear of losing your job if you are identified as supporting the protests.

No leadership for exile opposition

But there is also a fearlessness among the largely young Protestants. These are mostly ordinary Belarusians, not the hardened opposition persecutors we have seen in previous protests, and they have no clear leader.

The old opposition is gone. Some who stood against the president or campaign for democracy are behind bars, others have fled into exile.

Until now, the new generation of Protestants have no clear demands as a political program, only slogans: “Get out! Long live Belarus! Free the prisoners!”

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya herself was not an opposition leader but a mother of stay at home, whose straightforward approach was a symbol of people for change. But she, too, is gone.

However, there is still leadership and community. A crowdfunding initiative has raised more than $ 1 million (£ 765,000) for the injured and for detainees: for food, legal fees and fines.

The protests were calmer on Wednesday night and Belarusians are now looking for walkouts at their workplaces.

Some staff in factories and academic institutes went on strike, demanding an end to the violence and asking to recognize Ms Tikhanovskaya as the election winner.