Belarusian authorities on Sunday brought military trucks and barbed wire into central Minsk ahead of a planned opposition march, a day after police detained hundreds of women demonstrators.
The opposition movement calling for an end
to the regime of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has kept up a wave
of large-scale demonstrations every Sunday since his disputed win on
The latest opposition protests were set to
begin at 2 pm local time (1100 GMT), with opposition social media calling for
demonstrators to gather in central Minsk as well as in other cities.
Belarusian opposition news sites posted
video and photos of a convoy of military trucks and vehicles with rolls of
barbed wire driving into the center ahead of the demonstration.
The protest comes after riot police
cracked down on peaceful women demonstrators on Saturday who were wearing shiny
accessories for their so-called "Sparkly March."
They dragged protesters into vans, lifted
some women off their feet and carried them.
Belarusian interior ministry spokeswoman
Olga Chemodanova said Sunday morning that police had detained 415 people in
Minsk and 15 in other cities for breaking rules on mass demonstrations. She
said 385 had been’ released.
Chemodanova warned Belarusians they could
face criminal charges for organising such protests.
- 'Escalation of violence' -
The number of detentions on Saturday was
far higher than at a similar protest last week, prompting the opposition's
Coordination Council to warn of a "new phase in the escalation of violence
against peaceful protesters."
Among those detained was one of the most
prominent faces of the protest movement, 73-year-old activist Nina Baginskaya,
although she was later’ released.
The aggressive police tactics prompted an
opposition Telegram channel, Nexta, which has more than 2 million subscribers,
to publish what it said was a list of the names and ranks of more than 1,000
police.
Protesters have sought to expose the
identity of police who appear at demonstrations in plain clothes or in uniforms
without insignia or name badges, trying to pull off their masks and balaclavas.
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya,
who claimed victory over Lukashenko in the polls and has taken shelter in
Lithuania, on Saturday, said Belarusians were ready to strip police obeying
"criminal orders" of anonymity.
A female anchor on state television
channel Belarus 1 criticized the women protesters on Saturday evening, asking:
"How did these women get so aggressive? After all nature intended them to
guard their hearth."
The broadcast made no mention of police
detentions.
Lukashenko has dismissed opposition calls
for his resignation and sought help from Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who
has promised law enforcement backup if needed and a $1.5 billion loan.
Tikhanovskaya is set to meet European
Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday as the EU prepares sanctions
against those it blames for rigging the election and the regime's violent
crackdown on protesters.
Authorities have jailed many of Tikhanovskaya
allies who formed the leadership of the Coordination Council or driven them out
of the country.
One of her campaign partners, Maria
Kolesnikova has been imprisoned and charged with undermining national’
security.
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