Meanwhile in Belarus
The European Union celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which founded the European Community in 1957. All head of states or governments were headed to Rome in order to hold a summit, and in the end confirm the European values once more. Even the recent quarrels between the Polish government and the rest of the EU family seemed forgotten (for a moment), when Prime Minister Beata Szydlo signed the summit declaration – despite having threatened with a rejectionist attitude (though, she did hesitate for a split second before signing the document). While celebratory tweets reached the European elite in Italy, and thousands across the continent displayed their support to European values in huge marches and gatherings, other places in Central and Eastern Europe saw different kind of demonstrations and power display this weekend.
Belarus
Often referred to as the “last dictatorship in Europe”, developments in Belarus reached international headlines (most outlets had been focussing on President Trump and the newest developments in the new administration, such as the failed attempt of replacing Obamacare on Friday). After protests, which have actually been going on for weeks, were harshly responded by the police, the international press finally reported on developments in the Central Eastern European country.
Several hundreds of protestors were arrested and detained yesterday, on March 25th, the day the opposition traditionally takes the streets to commemorate the ‘Day of Freedom’. In 1918 on that day, the first independent Belarussian state had been founded (before being dissolved in the Soviet Union in 1919).
The protests mainly focus on a tax initiated by the Lukashenko regime. It asks people, who are unemployed for at least six months of the year, to pay a tax of €189 per year.
The tax is widely mocked as the “social parasites tax”, as the regime tries to convince of its necessity by punishing those, who are unemployed and “abusing the system”. The tax announcement was the last straw to break the camel’s back. Experts see it as the trigger for voicing long brewing dissatisfaction. Protests are mainly about the tax; but most protestors also voice their dissatisfaction with the government. The economic crisis has hit many hard, especially in rural areas people struggle, and are fed up with empty promises from government representatives.
Amid initial protests, Lukashenko, who has been ruling the country since 1994, has suspended the tax for this year, however, did not repeal it. Consequently, the protestors continued to voice their dissent on the streets. An officially authorised protest on March 15th was followed by a wave of arrests – aiming at intimidating the protestors. However, more and more took the streets.
Initially, Lukashenko ‘allowed’ the protests quoting the right to freedom of speech. However, after the protests increased and spread throughout the country, one could tell the powerful man in Minsk started to get nervous. Lukashenko blamed foreign governments of secretly supporting (and financing) the protests. People were arrested in order to intimidate others; in the run-up to what was to be expected the biggest gathering of people protesting the tax, people were arrested for simply sharing information on the marches online. Social activists and journalists, but also famous opposition leaders found themselves in ‘preventive detention’ – a popular tool of autocratic regimes; Lukashenko used it already in 2001 and 2006.
On Saturday, it did not take long until the brutality of the regime became visible: peaceful protestors, among them many older people, were dragged away, beaten, arrested. Despite recent attempts of the Lukashenko regime to improve relations to the West (which is perhaps why he hesitated for weeks until he reacted in the familiar way against the protests as he then did yesterday), and decrease its dependency on Russia, the severity of the repression shows once again that Belarus is far from democratic standards.
Russia
And today Russia followed suit. (Article continues below)
Source: https://twitter.com/Litvinenko_aa1/status/846020516121133062
Across the world’s largest country, people gathered and protested against corruption. Many witnesses say the protests today have been by far the biggest since 2011. As it was expected, one of the first arrested was opposition leader Alexej Navalny – however, soon after his arrest, he encouraged his fellow protesters to continue protesting rather than worrying about him via Twitter. The protests (which have been ongoing on a smaller scale for a couple of weeks now as well) were preceded by a report (made by Navalny and his team of his Anti-corruption foundation) allegedly unveiling corruption: Prime Minister Medvedev is accused of collecting and assembling several luxury items in the past years. Among other things, financing a house for ducks (!) on one of his properties – which is why small yellow ducks on protest signs or rubber ducks appeared in the recent protests.
Today’s protests in Russia saw at least 700 people arrested and detained, among them foreign journalists, who despite presenting MFA accreditation, were accused of “participating in an unsanctioned protest”.
Photo Credit (Cover photo): Radio Svoboda via Alex Kokcharov
