A brief thaw in Belarus ends in a wave of arrests

“SO THINGS are not going to get better after all?” Tatyana was bitterly disappointed. She had travelled 300km to Minsk on March 25th to join what was billed as a huge demonstration against Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko. Instead, she watched from the safety of a café. Across the street, police were systematically arresting everyone who tried to reach the protest site.

Three lines of riot police on Independence Avenue, Minsk’s main thoroughfare, prevented other would-be protesters from getting even that close. Hundreds were arrested, some beaten. Most were released the same day without charge, but 177 got short jail terms or fines, according to Viasna, a human-rights NGO.

This heavy-handed operation came as a surprise. The regime had tolerated a series of protests around Belarus since mid-February. For over a year, Mr Lukashenko had been bickering with his long-term sponsor, Russia, and cosying up to the West. (His overtures paid off in February 2016, when the EU lifted sanctions it had imposed after previous crackdowns and several stolen elections.) But on March 21st the president suddenly appeared to take fright at the demonstrations, claiming that...Continue reading