Belarusians congratulated Lukashenka on his birthday with protests, he responded with detentions

Mass protests took place again in Minsk and other cities of Belarus on August 30, the birthday of President Alexander Lukashenko. Thousands of rallies against falsified presidential election results and police violence against demonstrators took place on the streets of the country's capital. To disperse the demonstrators, armored vehicles were withdrawn, riot police officers detained several dozen protesters. Writes about it with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

Tens of thousands of people took to the march in Minsk. They were joined by members of the Coordination Council of the opposition Maria Kolesnikova, Maxim Znak and Lilia Vlasova. The security forces, with the support of armored vehicles, blocked the protesters in different parts of Independence Avenue.

Then the column moved along Pobediteley Avenue towards the Palace of Independence, where the residence of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is located. There they were blocked by special forces, to whom armored personnel carriers arrived to help.

People piled toy paddy wagons and helicopters, slippers, balloons with inscriptions, posters, flowers, a black coffin with flowers and a large cardboard cockroach on the asphalt near the Palace fence. Protesters burned candles and chanted “Sasha, blow them out!”

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The members of the Opposition Coordination Council, who came to the cordon at the Palace of Independence, asked the representative of the authorities to come to them for negotiations, but in response the security forces demanded that the people standing two meters from the fence move away.

Another video from #Minsk today. #LiveBelarus #Belarus... Video: MBH media. pic.twitter.com/MApDcT8SzY

- Ian Mac Eochagáin (@maceochi) August 30

Later, Lukashenka's assistant on general issues, Nikolai Latyshenok, approached the opposition and said that there would be no talks between the authorities and the opposition.

Lukashenka's press secretary Natalya Eismont, when asked by RIA Novosti about where Lukashenka was today, sent back his photo with a submachine gun in front of the Palace of Independence. However, as many noted, the photo was taken in sunlight, although it was cloudy in Minsk on 30 August.

Detentions and armored vehicles

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus reported that 140 people were detained at an unauthorized opposition rally in Minsk, while the human rights center Viasna said it knew of 100 people detained in the capital and regions.

In the early morning of August 30, the center of Minsk was occupied by the military and security personnel, who set up barriers to prevent the protesters from getting through. On Independence Square there were paddy wagons, water cannons, and ambulances. Four central stations of the Minsk metro were closed.

Mobile Internet worked with great interruptions. The mobile operator and Internet provider A1 reported that “in accordance with the order of the authorized government bodies, on August 30, the mobile Internet capacity in Minsk was reduced.” Later, a message appeared on the A1 website that as of 18:00 “the provision of data transfer services has been restored in full.”

Lying protest

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 30, columns of protesters began moving towards the city center. Demonstrators with flags chanted “Long live Belarus!”, cars honked at them.

Soon several thousand people were blocked by riot police on Independence Avenue. The protesting women, in turn, lay down on the ground in front of a line of commandos.

Then the protesters decided to go not to the cordoned off Independence Square, but to the presidential residence - the Palace of Independence near the State Flag Square.

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“We suggest you take flowers with you, as well as take creative hand-made gifts for Lukashenko,” wrote protest telegram channels, calling people to the rally.

Also, more than 350 Belarusian athletes came out with a public demand to invalidate the August 9 presidential elections and to hold repeated elections for the head of state.

According to BBC Minsk correspondent Steve Rosenberg, today's protests looked different from previous Sundays. “A lot more police, more security. The police are determined to stop these protests,” he noted on Twitter.

The people of Belarus are out again, demanding democracy and their freedom. Let's support them!

#Belarus #Belarusprotest #FreeBelarus #LukashenkoGo away #LiveBelarus #lucashenkogoaway #Belarus pic.twitter.com/MLtkCvVXQk

— char ✌? (@charkenzie) August 30

What happened in other cities

• Gomel. In the second most populous city in Belarus, protesters covered almost all the main streets. The column chanted “Sasha, drink tea, Putin is treating you!”
• Bobruisk. About 500 people gathered in Lenin Square. When the policemen announced to them that the event was unauthorized, the demonstrators marched in a column along Sovetskaya Street.
• Brest. More than a thousand people wanted to gather on Lenin Square, but they were not allowed to do so.
• Vitebsk. About 200 people marched through the city.
• Mogilev. About three thousand people came to the protest; a large column of protesters chanted “Go away!”

Congratulations to Putin

On the morning of August 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Alexander Lukashenko on his birthday. They agreed to meet in person in the near future during Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow. The exact date of the visit has not yet been determined, said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.

“The leaders discussed all the current issues. In addition, the conversation also touched on the general situation in Belarus,” the Belarusian state TV channel Belarus 1 reported.

On August 29, an event called “Grand Parade of Women’s Peacekeeping Forces” took place in Minsk.

Women dressed mainly in red and white (the colors of the country's national flag in 1991-1994) gathered on Victory Square and at 16:00 began moving through the center of Minsk. They carried posters “Troops with many children”, “Belarusian women’s team in freestyle struggle against the regime” and “A woman’s place is at the tombstone of dictatorship” and chanted “Long live Belarus”.

Among the participants was Maria Kolesnikova, a member of the Presidium of the Opposition Coordination Council.

On August 29 it became known that the Belarusian Foreign Ministry revoked accreditation of a large group of journalists working for foreign media.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• In Belarus, on Sunday, August 9, the presidential elections were held, which were initially accompanied by mass protests of people who disagreed with the policies of the current president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has been ruling the country for 26 years. After the announcement of the results protests erupted with renewed vigor, many disagree and doubt their veracity.
• Thousands of people gathered to protest against falsification of elections in Belarus. They are beaten and dispersed by the security forces. One person died... Svetlana Tihanovskaya left the country.
• On August 12, the European Union and the United States announced that the presidential elections in Belarus on August 9, in which the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner, were neither free nor fair... The EU and the US plan to impose new sanctions against Minsk.
• August 12 police officers opened fire to kill the protesters.
• 12 August women in different cities of the country formed living chains and sang lullabies near the monuments. TV presenters were fired from state channels, and military personnel and police officers threw uniforms and insignia into garbage cans.
• How detained protesters are bullied in Belarus, read in our material.
• For those affected by the protests already raised over two million dollars... At the same time, the money is collected through the personal Facebook of the campaign organizer, and there will be no detailed reporting on payments. But this is the only working scheme for Belarus - otherwise the fundraisers may be jailed.
• August 16, Minsk hosted the largest political protest in the history of Belarus - hundreds of thousands of people came out under white-red-white flags. The “Freedom March”, as the opposition called its action, took place immediately after the rally in support of President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
• On August 19, a coordinating council of the opposition, created by supporters of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya for the transfer of power in the country, began work in Belarus. Alexander Lukashenko called the creation of the council an attempt to seize power and threatened with harsh measures.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Putin creates special squads to help Lukashenka during protests in Belarus

Protests in Belarus: Lukashenka accuses opposition of trying to seize power

Order, adrenaline, psychotropic drugs: why the Belarusian OMON is behaving so cruelly

Mass action in support of protesters in Belarus was held in New York: photo report

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