BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

25/03/2007

First legal opposition protest broken up by Belarus police (Roundup)

Minsk - Belarus police have crushed the first legal demonstration in years by several thousand opponents of President Aleksander Lukashenko in Minsk, news agencies reported on Sunday.

Hundreds of black-uniformed special security forces using clubs and fists forcibly removed protestors from October Square in the centre of Minsk, eyewitnesses said.

Bands of demonstrators retreated to side streets and alleys surrounding the square, re-assembled, and made repeated attempts to move on government buildings in the centre of the city.

Other opposition groups, predominantly students and young adults, gathered at the steps of public buildings in the vicinity and chanted anti-government slogans, before being chased off by police arriving on the scene.

Minsk city police chief Anatoly Kuleskov said that arrests had been made, without giving numbers. Police were tackling and arresting practically all student-age persons they were able to catch, eyewitnesses said.

The heavily-armed and armoured riot police were seen to experience difficulty in catching lightly-dressed and fleet-of-foot demonstrators at some locations.

The demonstration had been given permission to go ahead. However, it had not been permitted to deviate from a route approved by the authorities, towards central government buildings near October Square.

Demonstrators carried doezens of historic red-and-white Belarusian flags - an open challenge to authorities in Belarus, whose authoritarian government continues to use a red-and-green Soviet-era national flag.

Opposition leader Aleksander Milinkevich was among the marchers, and in a confrontation with police announced his intention to lead the march in a direction forbidden by city authorities. It was not immediately clear whether he was among the arrested.

Ambassadors from Germany, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and the US - all countries with poor relations with Lukashenko - were present in the centre of the city during the events.

Hundreds of arrests were made at last year's protest march on what the opposition call Freedom Day, which is the anniversary of the 1918 declaration of the first Belarusian state.

The Lukashenko regime prior to the Sunday marches attempted to nip demonstrations in the bud by arresting or detaining for long-term questioning dozens of top youth leaders, particularly members of the banned anti-Lukashenko Molodoi Front (Youth Front) group.

Supporters of the Belarusian opposition took to the streets on Monday to protest against the re-election one year ago of the authoritarian President Aleksander Lukashenko.

Large numbers of police broke up the illegal demonstration in which only a few dozen people took part, according to Interfax news agency.

Following a controversial change in the constitution, Lukashenko was re-elected for a third term in office with a massive majority on March 19, 2006.

Source:

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1282560.php/First_legal_opposition_protest_broken_up_by_Belarus_police__Roundup_