TALINNING, Estonia (AP) – Belarusian authorities unleash a new wave of attacks and detention against government critics who attended opposition rallies overseas earlier this year, officials and rights advocates said on Wednesday. Sweeping of Opposition Free speech by an authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.
The country’s investigation committee said it had identified at least 207 participants at anti-Lukashenko rallies held in Poland, Lithuania, the United States and Canada in 1918 to mark Belarus’ short-lived independence after the collapse of the Russian Empire.
The attacks, detention and property seized took place in Minsk’s capital and elsewhere around the country, authorities said. They didn’t say how many people were targeted.
Mass arrests, trials and convictions of government critics have been ongoing since August 2020 Lukashenko He was given the sixth term in office in an election that accused the opposition and the West of being equipped. In January he was given another term of votes. It was also considered to have been coordinated to have him in office.
Tens of thousands of people protested and took them on the streets, the biggest demonstration they’ve ever seen. Authorities responded, unleashing violent crackdowns, detaining and beating thousands, and putting more than half a million people overseas in exile. The crackdown sparked international condemnation, with the US and the European Union imposing sanctions on Belarus.
The Viasuna Centre, Belarus’ oldest and most well-known rights group, told The Associated Press that “dozens of Belarus activists” have been detained in a recent wave of arrests. Viasna activist Pavel Sapelka called it “the biggest wave of oppression” this year.
Viasna recorded nearly 1,200 people detained as political prisoners. This number includes Yales Bieriatsky, founder of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize-winning group. At least eight political prisoners died behind the bar.
The exiled Belarusian opposition parties celebrate the fifth anniversary of the launch of the mass protest, scheduled for rallies in Warsaw on Saturday and Sunday. In response, Belarus’ Foreign Ministry summoned the Polish accusation d’ case on Tuesday, and issued a memo to condemn what was called “destructive” and “hostile” events that “damaged relations between Belarus and Poland.”
