Following the push for democracy in places like Georgia and Ukraine, there is now increasing demonstration lately for democracy in Belarus. In a recent demonstration in Minsk, protesters were viciously beaten by militia units, soldiers, and police. (For a fuller story, CNN has a bit of background and more details .) There are more links to pictures here, as well as a link to a video from a Ukranian TV site. (WARNING: if you don’t like seeing violence, don’t watch this clip. The repression of this demonstration was pretty brutal — one demonstrater died of a broken skull, apparently beaten to death. I’m not sure if that’s the man in part of this video or not.)
I don’t know if Lukashenko is more of a fascist (as some of the protesters claim) or a throwback to communist authoritarianism, but either way, the man needs to relinquish power. I don’t know how much news Belarusians get from the internet (it sounds like Lukashenko’s government has a fairly firm grasp on this particular medium), but I did recently have at least one visit to this site from a computer there.
(Some of these pages came via Power Line, others I found on my own.)
Down with Lukashenko!
Free Belarus!