St.Valentine’s Day Action in Minsk Dispersed by Police
On 14 February activists of Young Front and other democratic youth associations organized the performance “Heart of Europe” in Kastrychnitskaya Square in Minsk. In the evening about 100 young opposition activists including members of Young Front, Belarusian Student Association and pupils of Belarusian Humanities Lyceum gathered in the square. All of them had blue scarves, shawls or armlets with yellow stars. The action participants lit Bengal lights and started to congratulate passers-by with the holiday. In several minutes riot squads ringed the square and started to push demonstrators out of it. At the same time, the square was occupied by washing cars snow plough cars that allegedly came there to remove snow from the square.
After this a group of young people moved to the oppositional activists Anatol Liabedzka, Stanislaw Shushkevich and Aliaksandr Milinkevich to congratulate them with St. Valentine’s Day. A man in plain clothes tried to detain one of the organizers of the “Heart of Europe” action Siarhey Lisichonak on the way home.
On 14 February Young Front activists managed to congratulate diplomats of 11 countries including the EU members, US and the Ukraine with the holiday by passing special notes to them. Different kinds of oppositional actions were organized in 17 more cities of Belarus.
According to RFE/RL
