#WeConnect #Belarus
🏳️What's happening in Belarus (08/13/2020, 23:00 HKT):
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The protest movement can already definitely be called the "Awakening Revolution", because new social groups have joined and are joining the active protesters.
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For the second day over, more than several thousand women have come out to peaceful protests. Women stand along the avenues, holding hands in white robes. So they protest against the killing of civilians. This action has already become mainstream and now every day women go out like this in Brest, Grodno, Lida, Pinsk and other cities. In general, this action is already taking place in 12 cities.
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Starting from yesterday, large enterprises throughout Belarus declared a strike and stopped working. Employees of BelAZ, employees of Grodnozhilstroy, pharmaceutical plant Belmedpreparat and have stopped their work and are demanding fair elections and the release of prisoners.
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Motorists joined Strike. In big cities and in the capital, they block roads, reducing the speed to 20-30 kilometers per hour, so as not to start up paddy wagons and armored personnel carriers.
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Also in Belarus Christian churches have declared their support to the protesters. Catholics officially opened their churches to provide assistance and so that people could take refuge there from persecution, Orthodox priests and believers distribute water, food and medicaments to the protesters. Interestingly, the official Belarusian Orthodox Church congratulated Alexander Lukashenko on his victory. This is due to the fact that the BOC-MP is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Belarusian society is already calling for the creation of an independent Orthodox Church, following the Ukrainian example.
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Also a wave of dismissals from government posts swept across the country. On the Internet, in opposition telegram channels and chats, there are hundreds of videos showing how riot police, police or military officers burn their uniforms, tear their stripes and say that they are with the people. They are also dismissed from the state media and from the office of the President of Belarus.
During the nighttime protests, Belarusians use “be water” tactics. The movement is coordinated from the telegrams of the NEXTA channel and the chats of the 97% movement. Surprisingly, all coordination consists in updating relevant information and reporting and the appearance of law enforcement agencies in different places, as well as the need for assistance. Administrators of telegram chats "97%" report a large presence of Kremlin-bots provoking and misinforming participants in the Awakening Revolution. Also, a huge amount of lies and propaganda is being poured through the state television channels of Belarus and Russia. It is stated that the protesters are drug addicts and alcoholics, unemployed right-wing radicals. The opinions of so-called experts about the "Ukrainian trace" in the protest are regularly heard - allegedly Ukrainian nationalists are supervising Belarusian protesters. The same accusations are made towards the EU countries, especially Poland and Lithuania.
At the same time, police violence is only gaining proportions. The riot police fired at residential buildings and threw shells at the windows, the Ministry of Internal Affairs no longer hid the statement about its use of service weapons, the police brutally beat everyone they meet and spoil human property.
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At the moment, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not provide information on the number of detainees. The number of those detained, according to the human rights organization Viasna, has already exceeded five thousand. There are four confirmed deaths so far, unconfirmed four to eleven. The Supreme Court of Belarus has published a list of the names of 500 detainees.
The two youngest are only 18 years old, the oldest is 56 years old. At the same time, more than once in the opposition telegrams, the channels reported on the detention of minors. Most of the detainees were sentenced to 15 days of imprisonment, the longest "official term" - 25.
There are no detained citizens of Ukraine and Russian opposition journalists on the lists. It is impossible to estimate the real number of those detained, killed and wounded.
Text: Antony Tcherepenko (FHKC coordinator, Krakow)
All photos are from open sources.
