First death, shooting, barricades and Tsikhanouskaya’s escape: Second day of Belarus protests

Belarus protests

Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

Belarus continues to protest against the official results of last Sunday's presidential election.

Earlier, Central Election Commission announced the election results, according to which incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko wins the first round with a result of slightly more than 80% of the vote. His main opponent, oppositionist Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, according to official data, received only 10.09% of the vote.

A lot of Belarusians did not accept such election results and took it out on the streets of cities with protests.

We wrote about the first day of protests here, everything in detail and with photos. We will remind you of several facts:

- There were a lot of people.

- Protests took place in many cities: in Minsk, Lida, Baranovichi, Grodno, Zhodino, Pinsk, Kobryn, and others.

- Security forces used special means against protesters, which Lukashenko admitted.

- Some major problems with the Internet started all over the country (and it is still so, by the way).

- At first, there was a report about the death of one of the protesters. But later it was found untrue (unfortunately, on the second day of the protests one person died).

- Lukashenko called the election a holiday, and the protesters – sheep controlled from abroad.

Following the results of the first day of protests, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus announced the opening of 21 criminal cases. They are being investigated under articles for riots, hooliganism, resistance, and violence against police officers.

It is known that more than 80 people were detained.

Now let us tell you about the second day and night.

Second day of the protests

• At least as many people rallied on the streets as on the first night.
• Clashes between protesters and security forces continued.
• Security forces used rubber bullets and light and noise grenades (as on the first night).
• According to Euroradio, the protesters used Molotov cocktails.
• People fired fireworks at the security forces.
• Nasha Niva journalist Natalia Lubnevska was injured in the leg during the clashes.
• Unfortunately, one of the protesters has died. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he allegedly tried to throw an “unidentified explosive device” at the security forces, which exploded in his hand.
• Protesters plan to start an indefinite strike across the country on August 11.

Where did Tsikhanouskaya go?

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Open source

This was one of the key issues of yesterday. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya first stated that she would not take part in the protests, then went to the CEC to protest against the election results, then left the CEC building, stated that she had “made a decision” and disappeared.

Today it became known that she left for Lithuania.