Peaceful protests and strikes have continued ever since. In the following days, the protests brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets all over the country. Instead of pacifying Belarusian society, the police brutality produced the opposite result. Tikhanovskaya was promptly expelled from the country. At least four people were killed or beaten to death, and thousands received serious injuries. In response to this election fraud, tens of thousands of people took to the streets, to which the regime responded with unprecedented police violence. From direct and indirect evidence, on the election day, August 9, 2020, Tikhanovskaya received the majority of the vote, but the Central Election Committee of Belarus announced that eighty percent of voters supported Lukashenko. One of the candidates, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, consolidated the opposition to Lukashenko and led a powerful pro-democracy campaign. This demand manifested itself last summer as the country was preparing for a new presidential election. Belarus also has a strong demand for democracy.īelarus has many formal democratic institutions such as a constitution and the separation of powers, but in reality, it is a democracy in name only. He completely subordinated the parliament and judicial system to the executive bodies. Many of his political opponents have been arrested, fled abroad, or simply disappeared. Its president Alexander Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. Yet these days it offers us valuable insights into the future of democracy in the twenty-first century.īelarus has many formal democratic institutions such as a constitution and the separation of powers, but in reality, it is a democracy in name only. ![]() It only emerged as an independent state in 1991 and has never been in the headlines until last year when mass protests broke out in response to presidential election fraud. On the other hand, I understand the circumstances surrounding the strike.”īarcelona’s contemporary art museum and the Sagrada Família, the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí and one of the city’s most popular tourist sites, were expected to join the strike.įC Barcelona said it would take part in the strike, adding that it would close its headquarters and that none of its professional or youth teams would train.Belarus is one of the most obscure places in Europe for Americans. “We are suffering this because a few decided to behave in an improper way. “On one side it is a hassle to try to get to work in the midst of a strike,” she said. Office worker Antonia Cuello, 37, was in two minds about the industrial action. In fact, at work nobody told me anything about a strike. José Bolivar, 54, a town hall employee, said: “I disagree with the strike. They have beaten people who were holding their hands up. “People are angry, very angry,” said Josep Llavina, 53, a self-employed worker who had travelled to Barcelona from a nearby town to participate in the protest outside the police building. There were no reports of disruptions affecting big industry or Barcelona’s airport. Elsewhere, the response to the strike call was patchy. Metro stations in Barcelona that are usually busy were deserted as services were cut back sharply, and the Boqueria market was almost empty. ![]() Schools and universities were shut on Tuesday and most small businesses were closed after unions called for the stoppage to “vigorously condemn” the police response to the poll, in which Catalonia’s leader said 90% of voters had backed independence from Spain. However, while the Catalan sections of the CCOO and UGT unions are supporting the strike, the two organisations’ national leaderships are not. “We have called on all sectors to take part.” “An attack on democracy without precedent in recent times calls for a united response,” said Javier Pacheco, the secretary general in Catalonia of the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) union. The protest came as several small labour unions and grassroots pro-independence groups urged workers throughout Catalonia to go on partial or full-day strikes. In Barcelona, municipal police said about 15,000 people had stopped traffic as they rallied, many draped in the blue, yellow and red Estelada flag used by Catalan separatists, shouting: “The streets will always be ours.”
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