Election: yesterday’s associations

Central Election Commission issued warnings to the presidential candidates Vital Rymasheuski and Mikalai Statkevich for the unauthorized action in Kastrychnitskaya Square in the center of Minsk.

The same day the city authorities prepared the ‘dangerous’ square for making there a skating rink (during the previous winters it had been made a bit later, on the New Year’s eve). We can only guess whether oppositionists will skate there on 19 December or will be caught by the police and put in prisons, like it was done in 2006.


Reference

Kastrychnitskaya Square is the traditional place of peaceful protests against rigged elections (the actions of protest were held there in 2001 (after presidential election), in 2004 (after parliamentary election) and in 2006 (after another presidential election). The protesters even made a small tent camp during the latest action, which stood on the square for about five days and then was liquidated by riot police and public utilities, with the use of violence. About 660 protesters were detained. Many of them were sentenced to arrest terms or fines.