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For the first time in four weeks, demonstrations in Belarus featured LGBT rights defenders with rainbow flags at the Women’s March for Peace. This would show that Lukashenko’s opponents are beginning to behave more courageously.
“LGBT people demand freedom. We are tired of living in a dictatorship where we simply did not exist,” Ana Bredova, holding the rainbow flag, told AP news agency.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Belarus in 1994, but is often condemned to shame in the country. The government has not legally registered any LGBT organizations, same-sex marriages are prohibited in the country.
About 5,000 people participated in the demonstration on Saturday. women, the Viasna law enforcement center said. The militia saw the demonstration, but no arrests were reported.
Photo by Scanpix / ITAR-TASS / Women’s protest in Belarus
Hundreds of students protested in Minsk early Saturday, and Viasna reported that 20 people had been detained.
Women’s marches and demonstrations became an integral part of the protests for the August 9 presidential election, which was declared won by Lukashenko. According to official data, the authoritarian leader, who has led the country since 1994, received 80.1 percent, and his main rival, Sviatlana Cichanouskaya, 10.12 percent. votes. The opposition and western countries claim that the results were falsified.
Photo by Scanpix / ITAR-TASS / Women’s protest in Belarus
Lukashenko’s opponents formed a Coordination Council to encourage protests and the transfer of power.
Volha Kavalkova, one of the most famous members of the Coordinating Council, trustee of Chichanouskaya, jailed in Belarus for organizing protests, appeared in Poland on Saturday. She told reporters that the militia came to her in jail at night and told her that she could leave the country or face long prison terms. The masked militiamen carried her to the wall.
The Belarusian border guards reported that V. Kavalkova crossed the border on foot.
Photo by Scanpix / ITAR-TASS / Women’s protest in Belarus
“September 5 At approximately 2 o’clock in the evening, he walked to the Bruzgiai checkpoint, passed the border control and then … took a shuttle bus to Polish territory,” the State Border Committee said in a statement. .
The Belarusian Interior Ministry told Interfax on Saturday that Kavalkova had been released from prison to receive medical treatment.
Kavalkova herself declared at a press conference in Warsaw that she had been deported in the same way as S. Cichanouskaya. “It just came to our knowledge then [jų] not letting them in, ”he said, calling what had happened to him in recent weeks in prison as torture.
S. Cichanouskaya left for Lithuania the day after the presidential elections in Belarus.
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