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Protesters in Minsk: hundreds of people arrested
Photo: AP
Despite threats of violence from the police in Belarus, women in Minsk have gathered for a new protest march against President Alexander Lukashenko.
As on Saturday a week ago, there were once again numerous arrests.
"We do not forget! We do not forgive!"
and "Lukashenko, in the prisoner transporter", the demonstrators chanted on Saturday at the central Komarovsky market.
Prisoner vans were waiting in several places.
Motorists honk their horns in solidarity with the women, as a reporter from the news agency dpa reported.
Among those arrested is 73-year-old Nina Baginskaya, who was forced into a van.
Baginskaya is a veteran of the protest movement and has been known as a dissident since her fight against the communists in Soviet times.
Since the presidential election on August 9, there have been daily protests in Belarus.
Lukashenko had been declared the election winner with 80.1 percent of the vote.
The 66-year-old has been in office for 26 years and is aiming for a sixth term.
The opposition, however, considers Svetlana Tichanowskaya to be the real winner.
The protest march went through several streets on Saturday without a police intervention.
"Long live Belarus!" Shouted women while they carried the historic white, red and white flags.
Sometimes they opened umbrellas in the colors of the revolution because security forces repeatedly confiscated the flags.
The dissident Baginskaya lost her seventh flag on Saturday - she sews it herself.
The demonstrators are calling for new elections without Lukashenko, the release of all political prisoners and the prosecution of police violence.
In other cities in the country, too, women were called upon to demonstrate peacefully against "Europe's last dictatorship", as on the previous Saturdays.
The organizers of Girl Power Belarus announced this in their news channel on Telegram.
Opposition politician Tichanovskaya praised the courage of women from her exile in the EU.
"They leave, although they are constantly scared and put under pressure," said the 38-year-old.
At the same time she accused Lukashenko's "regime" of instrumentalizing children.
The authorities had put the six-year-old son of Minsk activist Jelena Lasartschik in a home on Friday.
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Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya: "They are trying to give us a choice"
Photo:
Artur Barbarowski / imago images / Eastnews
Hundreds of people called for their son to be returned to their parents on Saturday outside the facility.
Lasarchik left the home with the child in the morning - to the shouts of "Hurray" and applause from the crowd.
During the election campaign, Tichanovskaya had also reported that she had been threatened with losing her children.
She then had her son and daughter brought to the neighboring EU country of Lithuania.
Her colleague Viktoria Zepkalo had also protected her children from access by the authorities in this way.
"They are trying to give us a choice: either to be loyal to our own children or to the country," wrote Tichanovskaya in a statement.
But such intentions are ineffective because the determination of women is underestimated.
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jpz / dpa / AFP
