'It's outrageous' Belarus election result sparks night of defiance and

Riot police in balaclavas dragged an unconscious man across a square in Minsk, his arms and head dangling lifelessly toward the pavement. In another video filmed in the Belarusian capital, officers beat a young man and woman with clubs as they taunted them with the opposition’s calls for change. “You have to stay at home! Fuck change! Did you want change?”It was a night of defiance and violence in cities across Belarus, where tens of thousands of opponents of the country’s president of 26 years, Alexander Lukashenko, faced off with heavily armed riot police. Field medics treated people with blood streaming down their faces. An armoured car drove through protesters in Minsk, where activists said one person was killed and dozens were injured. Police said they had made more than 3,000 arrests. A reporter for the Guardian saw officers use water cannon and rubber bullets against protesters. Near a column of riot police holding metal shields, one activist held up her hands in the symbol of a heart. Speaking to protesters, there was a sense that young Belarusians had lost their fear of the government as the mood turned darker over an election they believe was stolen from the challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.“We’re tired of this rudeness, this nastiness,” said a protester in Minsk who was wearing a dark T-shirt and a mask and declined to give his name. “We’re tired of these numbers, which are a spit in the face.”Of Lukashenko, he said: “It’s not that I’m tired of the regime. If he had spent 26 years in power but behaved normally, then I would have had no problems with him.”When polling stations closed at 8pm, the government released exit polls showing that Lukashenko had won 79.7% of the vote and Tikhanovskaya 6.8%. The official results were Lukashenko 80.2% and Tikhanovskaya 9.9%. The protesters viewed both sets of figures with extreme scepticism.“Everyone has come out because we have been cheated,” said another man, a plumber.

All data is taken from the source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/10/its-outrageous-belarus-election-result-sparks-night-of-defiance-and-violence#img-1


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