Thousands march in Belarus opposition rally in Minsk

Tens of thousands of Belarus
opposition protesters took to the streets on Sunday, the latest large-scale
rally against President Alexandre Lukashenko's contested re-election.
For more than three months
Belarus has been gripped by historic weekly opposition rallies following
Lukashenko's reelection to a sixth term in August, which Western governments
have refused to recognise.
Tens of thousands of
protesters marched through different neighbourhoods in the capital Minsk on
Sunday, chanting "Long live Belarus" and waving red and white flags
of the opposition, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Security forces deployed
heavily around the city with armoured vehicles and water cannons before the
rally.
Around 70 demonstrators were
arrested by the police, according to the Viasna centre for the defence of human
rights.
"I can't accept what is
going on at the moment," one protester, 22-year-old computer scientist
Olga Matchits told AFP.
"I feel like vomiting
when I think of the people in power in the country and of the values they are
defending."
"They want to drag our dignity
into the mud," said another prottester, 72-year-old Alexandre Ignatov.
"It's for my dignity, for the future of my children that I have turned out
to demonstrate," he added.
Belarusian opposition leader
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has claimed victory in the election and is now in
exile in Lithuania, called Sunday's protest a step towards a "free and
fair Belarus" in a message of support for protesters posted on Saturday.
"We cannot turn the
country into a prison if nobody is afraid of the jailers," she said.
Before the demonstration, a
dozen metro stations were closed and the mobile network was experiencing cuts,
according to an AFP journalist.
About 5,000 people had
gathered in the Belarus capital Friday for the funeral of an opposition
activist who died of brain trauma after being arrested by police.
Roman Bondarenko, a
31-year-old soldier, died in Minsk after police arrested him following a
dispute in a city square that has become a regular meeting place for the
opposition.
Belarus opposition are
calling for the resignation of Lukashenko, who was re-elected despite
accusations of massive fraud.
Since the start of the
protest, thousands of people have been arrested, at least four have died and
dozens of others have denounced torture and violence during their detention.
Supported by Moscow,
Lukashenko, 66, has been in power since 1994 and refuses to leave his post. He
has only mentioned vague constitutional reforms in an attempt to calm the
protest.