English

Police violently break up “silent” protest in Minsk

Police officers and men in civilian clothes grabbed dozens of people, mostly youths, in Minsk on the evening of July 3, when Independence Day was officially celebrated in Belarus, to suppress what they believe could be any manifestation of opposition to the government.

One of such manifestations was hand-clapping, which has been an attribute of so-called silent protests staged in Belarus since early June within the framework of an anti-government campaign called “Revolution through Social Networks,” which is coordinated through social networking websites.

After campaign coordinators announced that a silent protest on Independence Day would begin in the square in front of Minsk’s central railroad station at 7 p.m., reinforced police squads and several buses without license plates, used by the police for transporting arrested people, were deployed in the area an hour before the start of the scheduled event.

Several hundred protesters, including elderly people and people with small children, gathered in the square. They displayed no signs and chanted no slogans but occasionally clapped their hands.

A soon as groups of protesters started to cluster in the square, riot police and plainclothesmen began to randomly snatch people from the groups and bundle them into vehicles to the applause of bystanders. Pepper gas was used during arrests. Reporters were violently pushed away. Some people attempted to resist arrest by lying down on the ground and were pulled into police vehicles by their arms and legs. Senior women among bystanders loudly expressed their indignation at the police brutality.

Media photographer Yuliya Darashkevich, Ihar Ilyash, a correspondent of the private weekly Belorusy i Rynok, and Valery Shchukin, an observer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, were among those arrested. Agnieszka Lichterowicz of Poland’s radio station Tok FM was also arrested but then freed.

Police officers in civilian clothes formed a line and advanced slowly to clear the area. The operation was observed by Ihar Yawseyew, deputy head of the Minsk city police department/public security police chief.

The protesters were ultimately dispersed. At least 40 arrested people were reportedly taken to the Kastrychnitski district police station alone. Among them were Ms. Darashkevich and Mr. Ilyash. They and another journalist, Alyaksandr Barazenka, were released after Alyaksandr Lastowski, spokesman for the Minsk city police department visited the station.