Belarus: more than 300 arrests during women’s protest against Lukashenko

Position: 19.09.2020 | Reading time: 4 minutes

TDespite the threat of violence from the police in Belarus, around 2,000 women gathered in Minsk for a new protest march against the head of state Alexander Lukashenko. “We do not forget! We do not forgive!” And “Lukashenko w Awtosak” – in English: “Lukashenko, in the prisoner transporter”, protesters chanted on Saturday in the central market of Komarowski. Prisoners’ vans waited in several Motorists honk their horns in solidarity with women, as reported by a reporter for the dpa news agency.

There have been more than 300 arrests, according to human rights activists. The civil rights portal spring96.org published the names of 314 women who were detained in the capital, Minsk, during the action on Saturday. Security forces got in their way and dragged them into emergency vehicles, as a journalist from the AFP news agency observed.

The number was roughly double the protests on Saturday a week ago, when masked uniformed men used brutal violence against peaceful protesters for the first time. There were also injuries a week ago.

When the uniformed men grabbed him, the women screamed loudly and shouted “Posor! (“What a shame!”). Nina Baginskaja, 73, a veteran of the protest movement and a dissident known since her fight against communists in Soviet times, was also forced into a van. A week ago, unidentified masked uniformed men had used brutal violence against women for the first time. There were more than 100 arrests.

Since the presidential elections on August 9, there have been daily protests in Belarus. Lukashenko had been declared the winner of the election with 80.1 percent of the vote after 26 years in office. The 66-year-old is running for a sixth term. The opposition, however, sees Svetlana Tichanowskaya as the real winner.

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“March of Feminine Solidarity”

The “March of Women’s Solidarity,” as it was called, initially passed through several streets on Saturday without police intervention. “Long live Belarus!” The women shouted as they carried the historic white, red and white flags. Sometimes they opened umbrellas in the colors of the revolution because the security forces repeatedly confiscated the flags. Dissident Baginskaya lost her seventh flag on Saturday: she sews the pieces herself.

The protesters are demanding new elections without Lukashenko, the release of all political prisoners and the prosecution of police violence. Also in other cities of the country, women were called to demonstrate peacefully against “the last European dictatorship”, just like the previous Saturdays. The Girl Power Belarus organizers announced this on their news channel on Telegram.

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Tichanovskaya praised the bravery of the women from her exile in the EU. “They are leaving, even though they are constantly scared and under pressure,” the 38-year-old said. At the same time, she accused Lukashenko’s “regime” of a new low because it now also instrumentalized children. Authorities had put the six-year-old son of Minsk activist Jelena Lasartschik in a house on Friday. Hundreds of people asked that their son be returned to her parents on Saturday off the premises. Lasartschik left the house with the boy in the morning to shouts of “Hurray” and applause from the crowd. The case was also the subject of a women’s protest on Saturday.

The country’s leadership uses children as “political hostages”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki reacted in shock. Once again, the country’s leadership used the children as “political hostages”. The practice has been known since the communist days of the Soviet Union, when attempts were made to break the political will of women in this way. “This barbarism must end,” the Polish politician wrote on Twitter.

During the election campaign, Tichanovskaya also reported that she had been threatened with losing her children. She then had her son and daughter brought to neighboring EU country Lithuania. Her colleague Viktoria Zepkalo had also protected her children from access by the authorities in this way.

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“They are trying to give us a choice: to be loyal to our own children or to the country,” Tichanovskaya wrote in a statement. But such intentions are ineffective because the determination of women is underestimated. “There is nothing stronger than a mother who fights for the future of her son, her family and her country.” Tichanowskaya had justified her candidacy in the presidential elections: she wanted to fight for a life in freedom for her children in Belarus until the end. .