An unauthorized rally of the Belarusian opposition against deep integration with Russia took place on Saturday in the center of Minsk in a calm mode, without incidents and detentions, a RIA Novosti correspondent reports.
The night before on the October Square, near the Palace of the Republic, a similar unauthorized rally started. According to human rights activists, at the peak of the rally, which lasted more than three hours, about 1.6 thousand people participated in it. Law enforcement officers did not detain anyone, but warned citizens about administrative responsibility for participating in an unauthorized mass event.
The current rally on October Square continued Friday’s protests, which, according to opposition figures, were timed to coincide with the meeting of Presidents of Belarus and Russia Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
Visually, several hundred people took part in the action, many of them unfolded white-red-white flags, traditional for the opposition, sang songs in Belarusian and periodically chanted “Long Live Belarus!” (“Belarus lives!”), “Ganba” (“Shame”). The meeting was addressed by the organizers, who called on the audience to defend the independence and sovereignty of Belarus. Some articles of the constitution of the republic concerning sovereignty were also read. Security measures on October Square were strengthened, but there were no detentions.