wave of persecution following this weekend’s controversial elections which boosted the power base of autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko and lead to the arrest of dozens of dissidents, human rights watchdog and other reports said Wednesday, October 20.
"The government claims that 77.3 per cent of voters backed a constitutional amendment allowing President Lukashenko to seek a third term in office and no opposition candidates were elected to parliament. The result of both votes are very strongly disputed inside and outside Belarus," said Forum 18 News Service (F18News) of human rights group Forum 18.
Forty-six opposition members were arrested in Minsk on Tuesday evening for holding an unsanctioned demonstration and face a maximum penalty of 10 days in jail, Belarus Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov told the Russian Interfax news agency. "The majority of those arrested are young people," Naumov said.
Other news organizations confirmed the number of detained political opponents, and said that at least one dissident, Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the United Civil Party, arrived at an emergency room after he was arrested during a demonstration near the presidential palace in Minsk’s central square and apparently beaten by police.
CRUSHING OPPOSITION
Crushing the last opposition movements in the former Soviet republic will give Lukashenko also more power to implement what human rights groups describe as one of "Europe’s strictest" religious laws. Analysts say the legislation will likely help Orthodox Church hard-liners who cooperate with Lukashenko’s leadership, while other religious groups and churches deemed as a threat to his rule will suffer.
F18News said that under the religion law, a two year deadline for re-registering religious communities expires on November 16 and those who fail to gain re-registration by then risk losing any property they own. Baptists are expected to be among those losing their properties and rights to assemble, amid reports that police already beat up an evangelist.
Police have "angrily denied" beating up a Baptist street evangelist Andrei Fokin , however they admittedly repeatedly detaining Baptists who were running a street library, F18News said. The detentions allegedly took place at the instigation of the local Orthodox priest wife in the town of Lepel, outside the capital Minsk.
STREET LIBRARY
He is one of two Baptists who have long been conducting a street library ministry in Lepel, setting up a small table on the street, singing hymns and offering passers-by Christian literature.
Baptist sources told Forum 18 on 10 October that five times in the past three months they have been taken to the police station. "Not once was a record of their detention drawn up," the Baptists complained. "Most of the time the police officers didn’t give their names and behaved rudely, accompanying their actions with bad language."
Opposition leaders and Western diplomats have accused Lukashenko of creating an atmosphere of fear resembling the Soviet Union era, say he wants to become president for life in his increasingly isolated republic.
