The protests in Belarus drag on with no clear end in sight. The demonstrations this weekend were stated to include “thousands” of demonstrators. This is clearly a lower figure than the “tens of thousands” were have seen claimed before and from the more than a hundred thousand protestors that we saw on some of the weekends. Does that mean that the protests are losing virulence, or are they just hunkered down for the long term? The strike last month didn’t do much.
There were more the 300 protestors detained/arrested this weekend. Lukashenko and his son were banned by the Olympic committee from the games. Lukashenko leads the Belarus Olympic Committee and his son is the first vice-president of the committee.
P.S. The picture of the detained protestor is from previous months, I just happen to like it (“Beauty and the Beast”). She was identified over twitter (@A_Sannikov) as Natalia Petukhova. The arresting officer has not been identified. Picture came from @svirsky1 via @XSovietNews
Thought you might find this of interest.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Belarus
She did not achieve victory in running for president last year, but Tikhanovskaya’s campaign proved that the end is not far off for Belarus’ longtime dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. Tikhanovskaya, 38, stepped in after her husband was arrested for campaigning for president against Lukashenko. Her charm and disarming honesty catapulted her to fame, and Lukashenko’s clearly rigged win led to mass protests. Leading a government-in-exile from Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya continues to organize the opposition, while Lukashenko has vowed to consider reforms at this month’s “people’s assembly.”
Read Online