9/14/20
MINSK – Tens of thousands of Belarusians jammed the streets of Minsk and other cities and towns, as opposition protesters pressed their nearly five-week campaign to pressure President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to call new elections. The Interior Ministry reported more than 400 arrests in the September 13 protests. Among them was RFE/RL photographer Uladz Hrydzin, who was with another photographer in a bar when a group of people wearing balaclavas detained them and confiscated their equipment. Hrydzin, who was recently stripped of foreign-media accreditation, was detained just before he sent photos of the protest. He is due to appear in court on September 14. The turnout in the Belarusian capital and elsewhere was the latest indication that opposition activists, and many average Belarusians, have been undaunted by thousands of arrests, beatings, and other intimidation tactics used by Belarusian security forces. Chanting, "Long live Belarus!" and. "Sasha, you’re fired!", crowds packed one of Minsk’s main boulevards, waving the red-and-white opposition flags and carrying signs that taunted Lukashenka and government officials.
Lukashenka, who has ruled the country for 26 years, has refused to hold talks with his opponents, and rebuffed calls to hold new elections. The United Nations has estimated up to 6,000 people have been subjected to detentions and, in some cases, torture by Belarusian security agents. Lukashenka made no public comment, or any public appearances, on September 13, one day before he was scheduled to fly to Russia to meet Putin for talks. Authorities did not immediately release any estimate of the crowds; in the past, however, the public figures have been exceedingly low. The human rights group Vyasna, meanwhile, estimated the turnout at more than 150,000. Ales Byalyatski, the director of the Vyasna human rights center, warned that Lukashenka would seek to intensify detentions and threats ahead of the Putin meeting "to show the Kremlin that the protests are abating and he is in control of the situation." “But so far repression has had the opposite effect,” he said.
