127th day of protests. Peaceful Sunday rallies were held in Belarus: security forces walked around the entrance halls, grabbed everyone, including an 84-year-old man and a whole class of schoolchildren
13 December 2020| BYHelp-Mediagroup
Source: Vladimir Tsesler’s Facebook
People protest again, among those who were detained are an 84-year-old pensioner and two journalists
Traditional Sunday protests were held throughout the country. Just like last time, these were decentralized local marches. Even at night people went out to the streets with flags. Columns of different numbers gathered in various cities and throughout the capital. People chanted “Look out the window, do not watch TV” and “This is our city.” Some columns met and, coming together, continued to move.
Detentions by the security forces took place almost immediately. Sometimes they were very cruel, and in some cases absolutely everyone who was caught by the security forces was taken to prisoner transporters. Even teenagers were detained according to eyewitnesses. In one of the residential areas, in order to intimidate people, the soldiers came into apartment buildings.
Yan Hryb, born in 1936, appeared to be among the detainees. Soon after the detention, the 84-year-old man was released.
This legendary pensioner was arrested multiple times at various protest actions. Before his retirement, Yan Hryb gave lectures at the Minsk College of Electronics. He also stood at the origins of Belarusian Popular Front and Frantsishak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society.
The popular rapper Max Korzh was also detained, he was soon released.
In addition, Stanislau Ivashkevich, a correspondent of the Belsat channel, Mikalai Hradziushka, a production editor of Onliner, and Henadz Veratsinski, a journalist, were detained in Minsk. Apart from the journalists who were detained today, 5 employees of the Belarusian media are currently in prison because of their work. Katsiaryna Andreyeva, Darya Chultsova and Katsiaryna Barysevich are charged under criminal articles, Yana Trusila and Ivan Kurakevich are serving 15 days.
On the whole, on 13 December, about 300 people were detained in Minsk.
Source: TUT.BY
In Smaliavichy, the police detained the entire class of a local school – the children were returning after prom dance rehearsal
The Smaliavichy police (Smaliavichy is a regional town 30 km far from Minsk) detained the entire graduating class of a local school. The schoolchildren were returning back home after dance rehearsals for a prom. A mother of one of the children, Hanna Sieviaryniec (a teacher of this school who was previously dismissed for her position) wrote about this on her Facebook page: “The boys were put behind bars, the girls – on benches, they were taken from one police van to the other, brought to a police station, ordered to face the wall. Thank God, a woman at the police was very surprised and asked: ‘Why did you bring children here?’ And finally they were released.”
Later, the police reported that the school students were detained because they used obscene language.
To which Hanna Sieviaryniec replied: “These children DO NOT use dirty words. This is the best class in the Smaliavichy region. From the sixth grade, they annually became the ‘class of the year’ in the school, there are numerous winners of regional and district Olympiads in academic subjects, champions of the game What? Where? When? [intellectual competition – ed.] and winners of music and sports competitions. They must have tried hard to run into this class.”
By the evening the police commented that the media panicked: “As soon as the police figured it out, they apologized to the teenagers several times for the inconvenience and let them go.”
Source: Reformation
Belarusian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters fight under white-red-white flags
Belarusian MMA fighters participated in their international battles under white-red-white flags.
Victoria Dvaraninovich, a champion of Belarus in kickboxing, held her fight in China. She came to the pre-fight performance with a white-red-white flag.
Mark Medvedev, a citizen of Homel, having won a tournament in Moscow, also entered the ring under the national white-red-white flag. It should be noted that the use of the national white-red-white symbols instead of the official red-green flag by Belarusian athletes at international competitions is a loud call to the official authorities.
For more information on the events of 13 December 2020, please visit Infocenter Free Belarus 2020:
