Students pulled from protests against contested re-election Belorussian According to President Alexander Lukashenko, masked men dragged them into vans. Reuters Saturday.
The Russian news agency TASS reported that about 30 students were detained for participating in unauthorized protests in the Belarusian capital, according to Minsk police officers.
Students, dressed in opposition red and white colors, protested against Lukashenka throughout the city for the fourth week. On Karl Marx Street in the center of the capital, students became victims of masked men.
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They also protested in front of the Minsk State Linguistic Institute, where five more students were arrested Friday, Reuters reported.
Thousands of women later reportedly held separate demonstrations, protesting the arrests of students and shouting “Hands off the children.”
Reports of ill-treatment by those arrested during the last few weeks of demonstrations emerged after the release of the people.
Dozens of arrested protesters disappeared along with dozens of journalists.
The government denies any ill-treatment of detainees, but photographs of demonstrators released from custody suggest otherwise.
On Saturday, a marching woman carried a banner depicting a wounded protester, apparently a badly beaten woman. She was photographed showing the poster to a police officer watching the protest.
Hundreds of others reportedly gathered for a Catholic church service on Independence Square to express solidarity with Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. This week he was banned from entering Belarus after returning from a trip to Poland.
Kondrusiewicz publicly spoke out against state aggression against protesters, Vatican news reported.
Protests erupted in Belarus following the August 9 presidential elections that led to the re-election of Lukashenko, who claimed to have won with 80% of the vote and claimed that his opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, received only 10% of the vote.
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The European Union rejected the election results and is considering the possibility of introducing sanctions against Belarus.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said that the US and its allies are considering the possibility of imposing sanctions.
Lukashenko denies all charges of electoral fraud.
