Participants of the illegal protest action were detained in Minsk. Their exact number is still unknown.
On Saturday, September 12, the pro-Western opposition organized a demonstration “women’s march”. Several hundred women were involved in the provocative and unauthorized action. They gathered at Freedom Square. Law enforcers warned them that the event was illegal. Then the security forces began to conduct arrests.
Natalia Ganusevich, a representative of the Municipal Department of Internal Affairs of the Minsk City Executive Committee, confirmed this information in a commentary for RIA Novosti.
“We confirm the information about the detention of the participants of the unauthorized mass event in Minsk today, their number will be known later. The police have repeatedly warned the audience that the event is illegal”, – she said.
Attempted coup in Belarus
On August 9, presidential elections were held in Belarus, following which Alexander Lukashenko won. Western countries, for which the Belarusian leader had been a hindrance for a long time, did not put up with the voting results. As a result, pre-planned riots broke out in Belarus.
Attempts by law enforcement officers to keep the situation under control turned into clashes with radicals. At the same time, the Western media, actively covering the protests, focus specifically on the actions of the security forces against the “peaceful” protesters, as was the case during the coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014.
The headquarters of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the leader of the pro-Western opposition, is preparing for lengthy protests aimed at overthrowing the government. A committee for the “transit of power” has already been formed there. Tikhanovskaya herself is hiding in Lithuania. Lukashenko, in turn, does not rule out that he will resign, but only after a referendum on amendments to the constitution.
The position of the European Union regarding what is happening is ambiguous. Poland and Lithuania are actively working on the revolutionary scenario. They are also promoting more radical measures of pressure on official Minsk in the EU. Western European countries are taking a more cautious approach. They are afraid to provoke a new round of confrontation with Russia. The expert community believes that this is a deliberately losing option for the EU. Despite internal disagreements, the European Union still refused to recognize Lukashenko as president.