Editor’s Note: This story has been updated due to new information.
Dozens of people have been injured and up to several thousand protesters have been arrested during demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud in Belarus on the night of Aug. 9.
Additionally, the Viasna human rights organization reported that one man had died after being hit by a police van and receiving a fatal brain injury. The Kyiv Post could not independently confirm Viasna’s report, which it attributed to a “reliable source.”
The protests erupted across Belarus after an official exit poll predicted an overwhelming victory for authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in the Aug. 9 presidential election. Lukashenko has clung to power in Belarus for 26 years.
According to the latest official election results, Lukashenko won over 80% of the vote. That sharply contrasts with alternative estimates, which suggest that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an opposition candidate, won roughly 80% of the vote.
After polls closed, thousands of people took to the streets, deeming the election fraudulent. They met an agressive crackdown by riot police.
According to Viasna, police injured dozens of people, who are now in Minsk hospitals. On Aug. 10, the Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed 50 protesters and 39 police officers to be injured. The number in critical condition is unknown.
However, the Ministry denied that anyone had died during the protests.
Overall, 3,000 protesters were arrested on the night of Aug. 9 in 33 cities across Belarus, the Ministry said. Family members of detained demonstrators gathered next to the detention center in Minsk on Aug. 10. They were not provided any information about the condition and location of their loved ones, the NEXTA channel on Telegram reported.
Viasna offered different figures on arrests. Since the protests began, 1,500 people have been arbitrarily detained, while over 600 have been placed under administrative arrest and fined, it stated. The charges against these people are politically motivated, the human rights organization said.
“We now have 23 new political prisoners,” Viasna said in a statement.
Valiantsin Stefanovich, a human rights activist at Viasna, said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Council of Belarus bear responsibility for the violence of the night. “It was their actions that led to such tragic consequences,” he said.
Law enforcement has opened a number of criminal cases against protesters, state-controlled news agency Belta reported citing Ivan Noskevich, chairman of the Belarusian Investigative Committee.
According to Noskevich, people charged with organizing and taking part in mass riots could be imprisoned for up to 8 and 15 years, respectively.
But protesters appear unwilling to give up. Calls for more protests are circulating extensively through social media. One message asks protesters to buy helmets, masks and other protective equipment and take to the streets again at 7 p.m. on Aug. 10.
The message demands that the authorities hold a new, fair presidential election and free political prisoners.
Another nationwide protest is scheduled for Aug. 12 at 11 a.m.
A press secretary for Tikhanovskaya said that the opposition presidential candidate will not join the street protests to avoid provocations, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Earlier, Amnesty International, an international human rights organization based in London, said on Twitter that it had recorded no violence by protesters, but had witnessed it from the police.
“Filmed 5 masked officers arbitrarily detain 3 men in a pedestrian subway in the centre far away from any protests,” the organization tweeted. “We saw […] arbitrary arrests, unwarranted and incriminate (sic) use of force by police vs peaceful crowd, including stun grenades, rubber bullets,” the organization wrote.
