MINSK, Belarus — In a present of would possibly, safety forces in Belarus on Saturday arrested a whole bunch of girls collaborating in a protest march towards the re-election of the nation’s strongman, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.
Following a ruthless crackdown on the protests that adopted the presidential election in August, girls have emerged because the face of dissent in Belarus, a rustic of 9.5 million squeezed between Russia and the European Union. Typically holding flowers and sporting white shirts, Belarusian girls have come to represent the peaceable nature of protests and supply a stark distinction to the brutality of Mr. Lukashenko’s strong safety equipment.
“Ladies can do loads, they’ll battle towards a dictator,” stated Irina Okay. Palyukovich, an economist, who took half within the so-called Ladies’s March on Saturday. “Males can not try this not as a result of they’re weak, however they’re extra weak,” stated Ms. Palyukovich, 35. “They’re being crushed extra usually.”
Ms. Palyukovich was one in all about 1,000 girls who marched from the central market sq. within the capital, Minsk, via town.
Initially, the procession was largely unhindered by the police, with only some officers filming the demonstration and a number of other undercover brokers following the march in vans. Then, a gaggle of riot cops sporting balaclavas briskly squeezed a big portion of protesters right into a entice in entrance of a shopping center.
A verbal confrontation ensued with girls shouting at cops and chanting: “Solely a coward can beat a lady.” Among the cops, who didn’t determine themselves, responded by saying the protesters had been paid to come back out by overseas governments, a typical theme put ahead by Mr. Lukashenko and state-run information shops in Belarus.
Many ladies have been visibly terrified as they have been confronted, blocked from all sides by heavyset, masked males. No less than one lady was taken away in an ambulance after feeling sick and falling on the bottom. One after the other, cops carried girls to police vans.
Greater than 300 girls have been detained general on Saturday, according to Viasna, a human rights group. By late night, many have been launched from police precincts, the place officers had taken their pictures and fingerprints.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Mr. Lukashenko’s important rival within the August election, who fled Belarus under duress, condemned the detentions, which she described as “lawlessness.”
In a pre-emptive countermove forward of Saturday’s march, Mr. Lukashenko’s aides on Friday convened hundreds of pro-government girls at a live performance rally at a hockey stadium in Minsk.
Talking on the rally, Mr. Lukashenko denied that the current presidential election was rigged and that the police had used drive towards protesters. He accused E.U. members, most of all Poland and Lithuania, of fueling protests to create a pretext for navy intervention in Belarus.
“They’ve many tips of their arsenal and we’re on the verge of a horrible disaster,” Mr. Lukashenko stated, referring to his opponents.
