“Elections” Countdown && “Swearing in public”
There are five days left before the “elections,” but the early election is already in full swing. There are reports from the dorms that students are being forced to vote early. The reason? It appears that earlier votes are easier to falsify: you have plenty of time for manipulation. Those who vote early get 2 or 3 days off (Thursday, Friday, Monday) and are requested to leave Minsk. That’s what I read on Belarusian students’ forums today.
Good news: contrary to earlier reports, the transportation system does not seem to be blocked (at least, not yet). Several people said they were able to buy tickets to Minsk for the 19th of March. So those earlier reports were probably geniune cases of cashiers’ running out of tickets.
The bad news is that there were lots of arrests today. Police arrested about ten Milinkevich’s people (and several people from the Kazulin’s team).
Most of the people were detained by the police, then almost immediately brought to courts, accused of “swearing in public” and charged with “petty hooliganism.” All of the activists were sentenced to 7 to 10 days administrative arrests.
If I could draw a map of Belarus with a light dot for each arrested person, Minsk would be all lit up, with about a dozen of Milinkevich’s campaigners arrested in the capital. And there would be several light dots in regional centers such as Horadnia (Hrodna), Homel, Vorsha, Brest.
It’s f…ing nuts, isn’t it. Milinkevich’s people seem to be “swearing in public” a lot, all over the f..ing country, those f..ing bastards.
March 15th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Hey - that you for posting all this. I’m glad you didn’t disappear from blogging since I wouldn’t have missed this & it’s not like they show all this on the news. However, that candidate that got “arrested” - was it a week ago? That got a small notice in the newspaper. -But not nearly as big as it deserves.
Last night there was a big article *not big big, but big compared to the pieces they normally post on our news-stations’ websites* about Danish people being held back and questioned. They were there as part of a group called SILBA to monitor the election. But surprise surprise - Lukashenka didn’t/don’t like that. I wish there was more focus on the election over here. If you can get the information then surely the newspapers should be able to find out something. It’s sad that the biggest sensation in the piece was that someone DANISH was held back…
I don’t keep a newspaper these days, don’t have time to read it - so for all I know, they could have run some stories in the press - but I just haven’t heard of any one big enough…
Anyway, thanks again for keep me updated.
-Mette
March 15th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Lukashenko is beating opposition, in a smart way. They arrest the key figures, but they do it very quietly in order to avoid hullabaloo and wider publicity.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Belarus must be strong; it’s true , western people don’t know the real situation in Belarus , few new about elections next 19 march !Soon everything is going to change : freedom and peace for Belarus always !! from turin Italy
March 12th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
[…] Segueixen els arrestos: 20 activistes a les últimes 24 hores. La tactica del govern? Acusar als activistes de hooligans! Sens dubte, Lukashenka és inteligent. Com diu l’autor de br23, Lukashenka esta detenint a tothom, excepte al líder de l’oposició, Milinkevich. No crida gaire l’atenció el fet que es detingui a “uns quants hooligans descerebrats”… […]