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Belarusian police brutally arrested dozens of protesters at a peaceful rally in central Minsk on Saturday to protest against police violence and electoral fraud, according to media channels and human rights activists. AFP, informs Agerpres.
This assembly precedes a large mass demonstration, which will take place on Sunday.
Most of the participants were women, some of whom beat sticks with sticks, others chanted “Give us our Masha!”, Naming one of the main opposition figures, Maria Kolesnikova, by a diminutive, and “Go away! “, He directed President Alexander Lukashenko.
Kolesnikova, 38, was jailed for the week after resisting forced evictions. She had become a key opposition figure after other figures in the Minsk regime’s protest movement were imprisoned or forced to leave the country. , including Svetlana Tihanovskaia, an opponent of President Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential elections on August 9.
Clashes broke out in the Freedom Square in the center of the Belarusian capital when men in black masks and masks tried to disperse the protesters, who rejected them, according to images released by Belsat and the independent portal Tut.by.
Riot police brutally push protesters into police vans
In another video, riot police brutally push protesters into police vans. At least 30 people have been arrested, according to the human rights group Viasna.
Belarusian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Cemodanova told AFP that “some women have been arrested” without commenting or giving further details.
Belsat, a Warsaw-based opposition television channel, told Telegram that two of its journalists covering the rally had also been arrested.
The re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, with a score of 80%, on August 9 in the presidency of this former Soviet republic, generated a broad protest movement, unprecedented in Belarus, denouncing an election fraudulent.
Kolesnikova, led by authorities on the border with Ukraine in an attempt to expel her by force.
The protesters claim that the elections were rigged to give Lukashenko a false and overwhelming victory and that Tikhanovskaya, forced to take refuge in Lithuania, was the real winner. Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, denies this and claims that foreign powers are behind the demonstrations, according to Reuters.
Kolesnikova, who had been incarcerated in a Minsk prison, was transferred to another detention center northeast of the capital on Saturday, Belarusian opposition officials said on Twitter, saying they did not know why she had been transferred. , says dpa.
Kolesnikova was driven by authorities to the Ukrainian border earlier this week in an attempt to forcibly evict her after masked men virtually abducted her from the street and forcibly loaded her into a car.
“Violence against women is shameful”
According to two other opposition representatives who were with her, she prevented deportation from Belarus, tearing her passport to pieces and throwing it over the window of the car with which the three were transported to the border crossing with Ukraine. She is currently facing a stiff prison sentence on charges of attempted illegal seizure of power.
Tihanovskaya, who opposed Lukashenko running for his best-known presidential candidate because he had been jailed before the election campaign began, called on police to stop cracking down on protests on Saturday.
“The violence he is committing against women is disgraceful,” she said in a statement. “Anyone who commits a crime against the protesters will be held accountable,” Tihanovskaya warned.
Web Editor: Liviu Cojan
