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“On Sunday at 9pm. 30 minutes. (Local and Lithuanian time) According to Viasna, at least 245 people were arrested in the country on March 27, ”the center said.
The center recalled that, according to its data, on March 25 at least 245 people were also arrested.
“So about 500 people were arrested in two days, about 400 of them in Minsk,” defenders said.
Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry said more than 100 people were brought to the compound on Saturday for administrative misconduct.
The militia also said that there had been no unauthorized mass acts called by the opposition in the country.
Mass demonstrations in Belarus began last August when Aliaksandr Lukashenko was declared the winner of a presidential election that the opposition and Western diplomats consider rigged.
But the protests were put down through the winter, and the government cracked down on its participants. Thousands have been arrested since August, several protesters have been killed and hundreds have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Telegram, a platform that mobilizes and coordinates protesters, called on NEXTA this week to launch a “second wave of protests” on Saturday.
In Minsk, opposition supporters planned to gather in the center of the capital until early afternoon, but were blocked by militias who blocked several streets and one of the main squares. This was reported by a reporter for the AFP news agency.
Photos disseminated on social media and published by local media showed the city center protected by military vehicles.
According to Viasna, among the detained journalists are two editors of the independent news portal Tut.by.
Earlier this month, the court sentenced the portal’s journalist to 6 months in prison for revealing leaked medical records refuting a law enforcement claim that a protester who died in police custody had been intoxicated with alcohol.
Despite the sanctions imposed by the European Union for the repression, Lukashenko and his colleagues are firmly committed. Since 1994, 10 million. the country’s leader with an iron fist claims to have endured a “revolution” driven by the West.
