‘We do not need war’: Belarus frees prisoners to protest

MINSK (Reuters) – Belarussian leadership has released thousands of detainees and on Thursday offered a rare public apology in a bid to stop national street protests posing the biggest challenge to President Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule.

Hundreds of friends and relatives, many of them in tears, stood outside a detention center in Minsk waiting to provide food, water and blankets to people who came in from the early hours of Friday.

Some of the Protestants had bruises and described that they were tightly packed in cells and complained of abuse. Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Barsukov denied that the detainees were abused and said all detainees would be released tomorrow.

At least two Protestants have been killed and about 6,700 were trapped in a collapse this week after Lukashenko’s contested re-election prompted the West to consider new sanctions on Minsk.

The release of the detainees and the emotion of tone used by two top government officials underscore the vulnerability of Lukashenko’s grip on a country that is seen by neighboring Russia as a strategic buffer against NATO and the European Union.

“I take responsibility and apologize for any casualties in the protests that hit it in the neck,” said Interior Minister YUI Karayev.

Tens of thousands of protesters on Thursday joined workers from some companies in the state who are proud of Lukashenko’s Soviet-style economic model, including the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) which makes trucks and buses.

Footage showed them singing “elections” and “leaving”. Local media also reported protests at the state-owned freight and earthmoving equipment manufacturer BelAZ in a city northeast of Minsk, and at the chemical plant Grodno Azot.

Protesters formed human chains and marched in the capital, supported by at least 10 television presenters and reporters from the tightly controlled state media who fired in solidarity.

Protesters accuse Lukashenko of rigging last Sunday’s presidential election to win a sixth term. The president, claiming a plot with foreign support to destabilize the country, dismissed the protesters as criminals and unemployed.

But another presidential ally, the head of a national state council Natalya Kochanova, said on Thursday that Lukashenko had ordered an urgent review of the detainees.

“We are not fighting, we do not need war,” she said.

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In Minsk, ambassadors from EU countries laid flowers at the place where one protester died, when a crowd cheered and roared.

“We are here to mourn the loss of life and also to show solidarity with the victims of the violence and abuse that has taken place in many Belarusian cities and towns over the last few days,” EU broadcaster Dirk Schuebel told reporters.

Lukashenko has sought better relations with the West amid deep ties with Russia’s traditional ally.

The EU lifted sanctions in 2016, introduced over Lukashenko’s human rights record, in 2016, but was able to introduce new measures earlier this month. Germany called on the EU to put pressure on Lukashenko.

Russia, which has urged Lukashenko to accept closer political and economic ties, expressed concern about what it portrayed as attempts by external forces to destabilize Belarus.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, the 65-year-old Lukashenko is facing growing anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic – which he dismissed as a “psychosis” – a slow economy and human rights.

Sergei, one of the released prisoners, said there had been 28 people in a cell that would normally contain five. Prisoners took turns sleeping, he said, and were given one piece of bread to distribute for two days.

Reuters could not independently verify his account.

“They did not beat me in the cell, they took me out of the cell and beat me there,” said Sergei, who refused to give his last name.