400 arrested in latest Belarus protest

Belarussian authorities arrested about 400 people in the latest country-wide opposition protests against President Alexander Lukashenko's regime, rights group Vyasna said Thursday. The protests went ahead on Wednesday evening in several cities in response to a call on Internet group "Revolution through the Social Network", the sixth such rally in a month. At least 180 people were arrested in Minsk and 220 in other regional centres, Vyasna said in a statement. As in previous demonstrations, protesters did not chant slogans or brandish banners but merely stood in silence, clapping their hands. Plain-clothes officers roughly grabbed both protestors and bystanders who happened to be in the area by accident, and arrested about 25 journalists, mostly reporters for Western and independent media, according to the Association of Belarus Journalists. "That the police began a hunt for journalists indicates that the authorities chose a new tactic, to limit the information about these protests in the media," the association's lawyer Andrei Bastunets told AFP. Most reporters were released after being harassed and told not to take pictures or record videos, the association said on its website. Several videos recorded at the Wednesday protests showed plain-clothes officers pull people from the crowd and even off bicycles, pushing some to the ground as police said through the megaphone that everyone should leave. "We've come here to relax. Is relaxing now considered a protest?" one elderly woman sitting in a Minsk square responded to such request, footage recorded by independent channel Belsat showed. Trials for those detained began on Thursday as the courts are still processing cases of protesters from the previous rally on July 3, which likewise saw hundreds of arrests. The administrator of "Revolution through the Social Network" Vyacheslav Dianov said the group would continue organising the rallies. "We will be thinking of people's safety and changing our strategy. But the rallies will continue," he told AFP. Later on Thursday a new announcement appeared on Vkontakte social network advertising the next rally on July 13. Vyasna estimated that the total number of arrests during 'silent protests' has reached 1,730 since June 15th. Most of those who have been convicted have been given fines or jail terms of up to 15 days. "The latest revolutions in the world became possible because of social networks," said the online appeal, in apparent reference to recent uprisings and regime changes in the Arab world that gained momentum via the Internet. Lukashenko launched a crackdown on the opposition, unprecedented even in his authoritarian rule, after mass protests on the evening of his landslide re-election in December. Dozens of opposition leaders have been sentenced to jail terms of up to six years after the December protests, when police detained nearly 700 people. Lukashenko, president of the former Soviet republic for nearly 17 years, has been repeatedly criticised for the crackdown by Western leaders and faces travel sanctions from both the United States and the European Union. The US House of Representatives approved a new bill late Wednesday to support democracy in Belarus and add congressional support for further travel sanctions for officials and security officers involved in the crackdown. "Lukashenko has one ally left: fear," head of opposition party United Civil Party Anatoly Lebedko told AFP. "They count only on special forces and intimidation of people."