{"id":50681,"date":"2010-12-20T10:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T10:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/2010\/12\/20\/opposition-leaders-arrested-after-riots-in-belarus-capital\/"},"modified":"2010-12-20T10:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T10:28:00","slug":"opposition-leaders-arrested-after-riots-in-belarus-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2010\/12\/20\/opposition-leaders-arrested-after-riots-in-belarus-capital.html","title":{"rendered":"Opposition Leaders Arrested After Riots in Belarus Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the biggest challenge to
\nauthoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in 16 years in power, thousands of
\ndemonstrators massed outside the main government office to protest alleged vote
\nfraud in Sunday’s presidential election, but club-swinging riot police drove
\nthem off and beat many, AP reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

The violent night left in
\ndoubt the next step for Belarus,
\nwhich is of interest to the Kremlin because of its position as a buffer between
\nRussia
\nand the West. The West, for its part, has been offended by Lukashenko’s harsh
\nrule and his resistance to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three of the candidates who
\nran against Lukashenko were arrested and the top opposition leader, Vladimir
\nNeklyayev, was forcefully taken from the hospital by unknown men in civilian
\nclothes, activists said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neklyayev’s aide said seven
\nmen wrapped Neklyayev in a blanket on his hospital bed and carried him outside
\nas his wife screamed, locked in a neighboring room. His whereabouts are
\ncurrently unknown. Neklyayev and two other candidates were severely beaten in
\nclashes with government forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The demonstration and its
\nviolent end all happened even before preliminary results were announced. But
\nopposition supporters were convinced that Lukashenko would fake the tally. In previous
\nelections, none of which were judged free and fair by Western observers,
\nLukashenko tallied 80 percent or more.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year’s election had
\ngiven tantalizing hints that the repressive political climate might be changing
\nin the ex-Soviet state. Not only were nine candidates allowed to challenge
\nLukashenko, they were even given unprecedented access to state broadcast media
\nto conduct debates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But if Lukashenko had been
\nlooking, or trying to look, like he was flirting with democracy, the romance
\nwas clearly over within three hours of the polls closing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The crowd that gathered in
\ncentral Minsk,
\nestimated by the opposition at tens of thousands, was significantly larger than
\nprotesters who massed after the 2006 elections. But those protests were allowed
\nto go on sporadically for a week; Sunday’s didn’t make it until midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

As riot police beat on
\ntheir shields to drive the crowd away from the government offices, the defiant
\ncrowd matched the rhythmic blows with the chant “We will come back.” However,
\nit was unclear how long such bravado could last in the face of harsh
\ncrackdowns.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Repression and
\narrested have stopped the wave of protests,” said candidate Yaroslav
\nRomanchuk. “Street democracy is over.”<\/span><\/p>\n

But anger remains high.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We had a peaceful
\nprotest and it is the authorities who used force,” said Marat Titovets, a
\n40-year-old engineer. “After Lukashenko spilled blood, he cannot remain in
\npower.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Protesters broke windows
\nand glass doors of the government building, which also houses the Central
\nElection Commission, but they were repelled by riot police waiting inside. Hundreds
\nmore riot police and Interior Ministry troops then arrived in trucks and sent
\nmost of the demonstrators fleeing. Some tried to hide in the courtyards of nearby
\napartment buildings, but were bludgeoned by troops waiting inside the
\ncourtyards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neklyayev was beaten by
\nriot police while leading a few hundred of his supporters to the demonstration
\nand was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to his wife. His left eye
\nwas bruised, his nose was bleeding and he was nauseous and unable to speak,
\nOlga Neklyayeva told the Associated Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another opposition
\ncandidate, Vitaly Rymashevsky, was beaten in clashes with riot police by the
\ngovernment building. He claimed that the people who attempted to storm the
\nbuilding were police acting as demonstrators and that he was attacked when he
\ntried to stop them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After the polls closed,
\nthousands of opposition activists converged as planned on October Square, but
\nmost of the square had been flooded to make an ice skating rink and pop music
\nboomed from loudspeakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The protesters then set off
\nalong the main avenue toward Independence
\n Square, where the main government building is
\nlocated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The demonstrators shouted
\n“leave” to Lukashenko, who has led Belarus
\nsince 1994 in a heavy-handed regime that is often characterized as the last
\ndictatorship in Europe. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Belarusians have
\nshown that they want freedom and cannot tolerate the current regime,”
\nopposition leader Yaroslav Romanchuk said.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Photos by Reuters<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three of the candidates who ran against Lukashenko were arrested…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[10608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}