The "People's Assembly" of the opposition in Minsk was without detention

The next action of the Belarusian opposition "People’s Assembly" in Minsk was held without detention. But the opposition are unhappy and indicate: the authorities did everything to disrupt the action and intimidate the people.

“From the part of the internal affairs bodies, everything was competent: the protection of public order was ensured, the tasks that were assigned to us are completed,” Konstantin Shalkevich, head of the information and public relations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, told Interfax . “Everything went calmly, without excesses. There were not entirely adequate young people, but they did not affect the general calm character,” he added.

Opposition resources are informed of the promotion in a completely different tone. So, the Charter-97 writes that "the authorities did everything in order to intimidate people to prevent them from taking to the streets."

Already a week before the campaign, they began to detain the opposition activists responsible for the conduct of gatherings. Hundreds of people underwent arrests and detentions. The distribution of information products of the folk gathering was strictly suppressed - distributors were arrested, leaflets were confiscated.

The organizers of the "people's gatherings" in Minsk and 30 cities of Belarus were called to the prosecutor’s office, where they were awarded official warnings about responsibility for conducting "unauthorized" shares.

The most brutal pressure occurred directly on October 8th. Oppositionists began to be detained from 6 in the morning, literally pulling out of beds, the traffic police and special forces captured their cars in which they drove sound -legitimate equipment or resolution of the gathering to the venue.

The applicants of the action in Minsk, the co -chair of the Belarusian Rukh party Viktor Ivashkevich and the leader of the trade union of the electronic industry Gennady Fedynich called to the prosecutor's office and the Minsk City Executive Committee, where the mayor of Minsk Nikolai Ladutko threatened them with "responsibility".

In almost all state institutions, ideologists and superiors warned people: go to the action - lose their jobs. The same preventive conversations were held with students and even schoolchildren.

Independent Internet sites in the morning of October 8 were blocked in Belarus.

As a result, the shares did not take place in many regions.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs left without comment the information of Internet resources about detentions in a number of cities of opposition activists on the eve of the National Assembly.