Belarusian riot police beat out "water"
The Belarusian Maidan activists received a new directive on Tuesday afternoon from their coordinators, the Polish network of telegram channels inciting unrest: “Decentralization! Be like water!
“The protest tactics, in which security forces are scattered throughout the city and are forced to constantly frantically move in search of groups of peaceful demonstrators, have proven to be extremely successful. From now on, protest tactics are as simple as possible... Leave your homes, meet your neighbors and gather in small groups of up to 20 people. Don't stand at one point! Move towards the city center in small groups, but do not go to the central squares - the security forces are ready for this. If there are only a few of you, and the security forces are attacking, run away, regroup and appear in another place. There is no shame in retreating! Be like water!” the coordinators wrote.
Judging by scattered information (the Internet in Belarus is still turned off), the tactic did not work.
The Belarusian riot police coped not only with scattered groups, but even with individual passers-by and drivers. The cleanup began from the area in front of the Pushkinskaya metro station, the main site of last night’s protests.
An impromptu memorial was set up there in honor of the only person killed in the protests, whose name no one knows.
Law enforcement officers immediately dispersed everyone, not excluding even the journalists filming the memorial. Correspondents were treated especially harshly.
“The security forces attacked the photographers who were filming. Some were hit in the face. Everyone was told: either go to the department or hand over the flash drives. There were no people willing to ride in the paddy wagon. Even in Egypt, during revolutions and counter-revolutions, I have never encountered anything like this,” said military correspondent Alexander Kots.
A little later, relatively large groups of protesters were dispersed in the areas of Uruchye, Serebryanka and Kamennaya Gorka. The barricades that the Maidan workers tried to build were swept away, their builders dispersed. This time the police pursued those fleeing in the courtyards, storming the entrances of apartment buildings where people tried to hide. Sometimes local residents (active old women) helped them find the fugitives, but insults were heard from the balconies.
Rubber bullets and stun grenades were used again.
A new tactic of riot police was beating up cars. Over the past few days, many drivers on the streets have continuously honked their horns in support of the protests. Today, law enforcement officers beat their batons directly on windshields, knocked down mirrors, and sometimes stopped cars, dragging drivers out and using force against them.
For some reason, motorcyclists were treated especially cruelly.
Eyewitnesses also captured the ramming of a car by security forces.
Unlike past days, when Maidan protesters tried to show aggression, in today’s videos, civilians are running away, lying on the ground, screaming. It seems that only a final effort is needed to finally suppress the protests. Unlike the ancient Persian king Xerxes, Belarusian policemen successfully flogged the opposition “water”.
However, the Maidan activists continue to persist. So, a few hours after the cleansing, they again went to Pushkinskaya.
“Now we will see whether the Maidan can be dealt with by force. Narrow-minded guardians believe that this is very simple. Give the command and that's it! But no. Police violence and so-called squads titushek is more likely a part of the Maidan spiral of violence than a cure for it. When you drive Protestants into the asphalt, it only attracts new ones to the square.
Why should we care? Because Belarus is a strong state. If it is demolished, then Russia will definitely not be able to resist. The Russian Federation, in my opinion, is a much more vulnerable and poorly organized country,” wrote military correspondent Igor Dimitriev, a former deputy of the Odessa City Council who left Ukraine in 2014 after the defeat of the Russian Spring there, in a telegram channel.
His concerns are shared by military correspondent Roman Saponkov, who worked in the Donbass and Syria and has now come to cover events in Belarus.
“Ideas in the style: “Let’s beat everyone up, and then the protesters will understand that they need to love the current government,” may work, or they may not... That is. There was a lot of violence going on in the streets yesterday. And what they did to people in the police departments remains to be seen... in this situation, sooner or later society may pass the point of no return and violence will begin,” comments Saponkov.
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