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Police disrupt Freedom Day events in Minsk

Police prevented opposition groups from holding "Dzen Voli" (Freedom Day) events in downtown Minsk on Friday evening on the occasion of the 93rd anniversary of the proclamation of the independence of the 1918 Belarusian National Republic (BNR), said BelaPAN.

More than 50 opposition activists were arrested immediately before or during the events, leaving demonstrators with no one to lead them.

Opposition groups Malady (Young) Front and European Belarus had planned to stage a demonstration in Minsk`s downtown Yakub Kolas Square at 6 p.m. The Belarusian Popular Front, the Movement for Freedom and other groups had called on Belarusians to come to Yanka Kupala Park at 6 p.m. and lay flowers at the statue of the Belarusian literary great.

Those arrested included Viktar Ivashkevich, a coordinator of European Belarus; Aleh Korban, chairman of the youth wing of the United Civic Party; Mikola Dzemidzenka, deputy chairman of Malady Front; and prominent young opposition activist Franak Vyachorka. A polish citizen, identified as Krzysztof Kiedrzyn, was also reported arrested.

About 200 people gathered in Yakub Kolas Square at 6 p.m. Dozens of policemen in civilian clothes kept watch on them, walking among demonstrators, talking on their mobile phones, filming everything on video cameras, threatening people with trouble and telling them to go away.

Plainclothesmen pushed Belarusian and even Russian journalists away from the demonstrators and blocked their photo and video cameras from operating. When told that the journalists were just performing their duties, a plainclothesman replied, "So what? What happened on the election night will happen again."

There were five prisoner trucks, three military trucks and an ambulance parked on Kamunistychnaya Street about a mile from Yakub Kolas Square, six prisoner trucks and six police buses on nearby Chyrvonaya Street and six police buses in the square itself.

Trains passed the Yakub Kolas Square subway station without stopping and all underground passageways were blocked. Buses and streetcars did not stop in the square either.

By contrast with the Dzen Voli demonstrations in previous years, no one made speeches or displayed Belarus` historically national white-red-white flags or other symbols.

Plainclothesmen snatched a sign saying, “Lukashenka is not President,” from the hands of a demonstrator and took away his white-red-white ribbons.

Only a handful of prominent opposition activists were present in the square, including Alyaksandr Makayew, a leader of an opposition group called Razam, and opposition youths Palina Kuryanovich and Tatsyana Shaputska.

At around 6:40 p.m., the crowd headed toward Victory Square along a sidewalk. However, it was stopped two hundred yards down the road by a cordon of plainclothesmen. The demonstrators made their way back to the assembly place and dispersed after half an hour.

The Dzen Voli event at the other venue was an equally subdued affair. Yanka Kupala Park was sealed off by police, allegedly because a suspicious "object containing pieces of wire" had been discovered there and a bomb disposal squad was examining it. Eventually, several dozen people who were present to lay flowers at the Yanka Kupala statue left their flowers near the entrance into the park, but the flowers were promptly removed by police officers.

Despite repeated police warnings, people stood near Yanka Kupala Park for nearly two hours, with some young people chanting, "Zhyve Belarus!" (Long Live Belarus!) Two young men who appeared at the scene with small white-red-white flags were grabbed by plainclothesmen and bundled into a police bus.

Ihar Yawseyew, deputy head of the city police department who last month received a letter of thanks from Alyaksandr Lukashenka for his "considerable contribution to the protection of public order and the maintenance of public safety," announced at 7:50 p.m. that the demonstrators had two minutes to clear the sidewalk and stop getting in people`s way. Accompanied by plainclothesmen, the crowd walked to nearby Kastrychnitskaya Square and then dispersed. Young people raised several white-red-white flags in the square, but plainclothesmen took them away.

By obstructing people who want to celebrate the anniversary of the first Belarusian state’s independence, the authorities are showing their weakness, said Alyaksey Yanukevich, chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front. "On the one hand, the government says that it is strong, but on the other hand, police officers are forced to say that a bomb had been planted at the place where we wanted to lay flowers,” he said.