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Organizers of «silent» protest campaign urge Lukashenka to sack interior minister after crackdown

The organizers of an online campaign called "Revolution through Social Networks" have urged Alyaksandr Lukashenka to sack Interior Minister Anatol Kulyashow after the police's unprovoked crackdown on a peaceful protest in Minsk on June 22, BelaPAN said.

In its statement, the organizers accuse police officers of using excessive force during the break-up of the weekly "silent" protest and say that Mr. Kulyashow must be dismissed to prevent the further use of the hard-line tactics against peaceful protesters.

The campaign calls on people to come to the central squares of their localities every Wednesday at 7 p.m. to express discontent with the authorities through silent protests involving no slogans or banners.

One of the organizers, Vyachaslaw Dzianaw, told BelaPAN that no formal petitions would be sent to the Presidential Administration, the interior ministry or the Prosecutor General's Office. "The dissemination of the statement through media and social networks will be enough. I believe Lukashenka will give an ear to such a format of communication," he said.

A total of some 450 people were arrested during "silent" protests staged in dozens of Belarusian cities on June 22.

In a sign that the online campaign has been gathering pace, protests were staged in all of the five regional capitals and dozens of other cities, even small ones, such as Nyasvizh, Staryya Darohi, Bykhaw, Hlybokaye and Hantsavichy. Arrests were said to have been made in Minsk, Barysaw, Maladzyechna, Vileyka, Vitsyebsk, Zhodzina, Slutsk, Brest, Hrodna, Mazyr, Vawkavysk, Salihorsk and Kalinkavichy.