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December, 13 is the 127th day of post-election protests in Belarus.
For more than four months, Belarusians have been taking to the streets to show their outrage over election fraud, police violence, wanton violations of human rights in the country.
On Telegram, Belarusians called today’s protest rallies the March of People’s Accusing, since its participants keep accusing the authorities of numerous crimes.
For the fourth Sunday in a row, people have gathered in their neighborhoods and then moved to the places previously defined in local chats or decided on the spot where to march.
On November 17, Alyaksandr Lukashenka instructed security agencies to ‘restore order’ in the country and stamp out the protests. The opposition-minded Belarusians responded with decentralising Sunday marches; as a result, pro-government forces had more difficulty dispersing protesters who scattered all over the capital city.
In spite of today’s unfavourable weather and ice-slick, people in numerous Belarusian places (not only in the capital city) are going to show up at the march. In Minsk, where the temperature was about three degree below zero, water cannons were spotted in a number of residential areas.
Had the march hardly kicked off, pro-government forces started to detain protesters in different corners of the Belarusian capital.
“Look out of your window, stop watching [state-run] TV!” Today Minskers mainly formed small columns and marched along city streets and yards.
In search of protesters, the riot police combed out offstreet yards in many bedroom neighbourhoods of Minsk. More than often, they detained bystanders and passers-by, not protesters.
Unlike centralised rallies, ‘yard’ marches cannot boast of its scale and number of participants. However, it should be noted that dozens of such actions have been held throughout Belarus.
During Sunday’s protest rally in Minsk, Belsat TV journalist Stanislau Ivashkevich was detained and taken to Maskouski district police department.
By 8 pm (local time), there have been more than 170 names on the list of detainees, the information is being updated, human rights centre Viasna reports.
belsat.eu
