Expert: Brutal police force is a message to Belarusian people and West

Anastasia: “They stood on the both sides, rounded the people and started pressing. My arms and my chest are all in pain”.

Auhinnia: “I was pressed and pushed inside with force. I began demanding to call for an ambulance or let me go. I was protecting one guy from the Youth Front. He was being smothered and beaten. He is lying there, hardly breathing”.

Anastasia and Auhinnia seem to be the only ones who yesterday managed to escape from a police bus when a peaceful opposition demonstration to mark 90 years since the first declaration of Belarus’s independence was ruthlessly broken up by the anti-riot police. Others were not that happy. Over 100 people, including journalists and occasional by-passers, were forcefully detained and beaten.

The action participants had planned to gather on Yakub Kolas square in order to lay flowers to the Belarusian poet’s monument. However, the police cordoned off the area, while public buses were told not stop on the square. The demonstrators started moving towards Victory Square.

The riot police made several attempts to split the column. At the corner of Independence Avenue and Kozlov Street, officers brutally dispersed the demonstrators.

Why so brutally? The recent mass protest actions by entrepreneurs took place peacefully. Political analyst Uladzimir Matskevich says the police showed off strength to the Belarusian people, in the first place.

“The government has demonstrated to its people that relations with the West are the government’s business. Celebrating or acknowledging the 90th anniversary of the Belarusian People’s Republic is also their business. All in all, they showed that the civil society should shut up and so what it is told by the government”, Matskevich said.

In the view of the commentator, the police were also carrying a message to the West.

“The West is once again being made to understand that it should have no illusions regarding the democratic and liberal nature of our regime. The message is that the regime in Belarus does not fear to deteriorate relations. They are showing off their strength even more. And the West will have to reckon with it, it wants to agree with us. And we think that you want to agree with us. So, you’d better agree with us the way we are. This is the message to the West”.

Lyavon Barshcheuski, the chairman of the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front, believes that the authorities are thus trying to intimidate the people. However, such actions could lead to a reverse effect.

“I think that part of the blame should be put on us. In the sense that the more people get to the streets, the more peaceful the police behave. On the other hand, this is proof that this regime is fearful and weak. If they think that they can scare all and people will stop coming out, they are wrong”.

Meanwhile, Vadzim Hihin, the editor-in-chief of the state-sponsored magazine Belaruskaya Dumka, actually doubts that the police brutally dispersed the demonstration. He thinks that our police always have tactful manners.

Vadzim Hihin: “I did not see. Perhaps, people provoked this reaction. You can’t trust Internet much”.

ERB: Did you see photos or videos about the developments there?

Vadzimr Hihin: “They are very vague. What can I say?”

The demonstration ended with dozens of beaten or detained people and broken flags. However, those who managed to escape arrests always remember that March 25 is a festive day, Freedom Day, in the first place.