Belarus Protests Turn Violent After Vote

[IChing]

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Police clashed with students and seriously beat the leader of Belarus' main opposition party Tuesday, witnesses said, in protests against a referendum that gave the authoritarian leader the right to run for president again but was widely denounced as fraudulent.

Belarus' top police officials said 46 people were detained during the protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled this former Soviet republic with an iron fist for 10 years.

In Sunday's referendum, 77 percent of those who voted supported the measure to scrap the two-term limit on presidents, according to election officials. Legislative elections held simultaneously gave no seats to opposition parties. International observers and an independent exit poll, however, suggested the voting was neither free nor fair and the results were flawed.

Thousands of young Belarusians held a noisy evening protest in a square near the presidential administration Monday night and marched to the headquarters of the security agency, the KGB.

Tuesday night, police detained at least 30 people in the crowd of about 300 students who marched down a central street shouting "Lukashenko lost!"

Associated Press photographer Sergei Grits, who was covering the event, also was briefly detained and released.

A confrontation broke out later after police dragged several protesters into a pizza restaurant. Angry demonstrators then massed outside the restaurant, beating on the glass doors and yelling "Fascists!" and "Freedom!"
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It the sign of the times? More bad treatment in the ap story.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BELARUS_REFERENDUM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Alexander]

1. Belarus is the only dictatorship left in Europe.

Hopefully they can achieve some semblance of democracy, for their sake.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. look at Russia

That is all but a dictatorship now aswell. Both countries are right wing dictatorships. Putin did everythign he could to fuck over his opposition communist party.

[Wright Patman]

3. Look at U.S.

eom

[FarLeftRage]

4. A possible preview of November 3rd???

In this US of A??? Maybe!!