Belarus police disperse anti-Lukashenko protesters near Stalin-era execution site

Police in Belarus Sunday dispersed protesters who had been marching from Minsk to a Stalin-era execution site in the latest of weeks of demonstrations against strongman Alexander Lukashenko’s disputed re-election.

An AFP journalist heard loud bangs and the sound of shots being fired and saw police chasing protesters in a field not far from the Kuropaty site, a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk where thousands of people were executed during Stalin’s purges.

The last time a march to the execution site was violently dispersed was in the Soviet era in 1988 when authorities used tear gas.

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On Sunday, thousands of people hit the streets of Minsk in defiance of strongman Lukashenko’s latest threats to “take no prisoners.”

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Rights group Viasna said that 70 people had been detained, mostly in Minsk.

Law enforcement officers detain a man during a march of opposition supporters from central Minsk to a site of Stalin-era executions just outside the capital on November 1, 2020. (Stringer/AFP)

Tens of thousands have protested every Sunday in Belarus for nearly three months after longtime ruler Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in an August presidential election.

Main opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya denounced the vote as a fraud and has been backed by Western leaders who refuse to recognize the result.