On Sunday, as they had the previous week, tens of thousands of protesters converged on Belarus’s capital, Minsk. They chanted calls for the resignation and even the arrest of the country’s long-ruling authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, two weeks after he claimed victory in an election widely viewed as fraudulent. Authorities issued warnings against the mobilization in Minsk, but perhaps as many as 250,000 people from across the country marched in defiance, dwarfing smaller pro-regime rallies with crowds Lukashenko’s proxies reportedly coerced to attend. So far, the heavy-handedness of security forces — including reports of disappearances, beatings and torture — has only emboldened a fledgling protest movement that’s knitted together a vast cross-section of Belarusian society in their demands for just elections and an end to Lukashenko’s 26-year-rule.
Protests in Belarus
OP-ED
Ishaan Tharoor: Can people power topple Europe’s ‘last dictator’?
Workers of Minskenergo (Minsk Energy Company) raise their hands during a rally in Minsk on Aug. 17, 2020, after the incumbent president rejected calls to step down in a defiant speech.
