Belarus targets dozens of government critics with raids and detention, advocates say

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TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Authorities in Belarus unleashed a new wave of raids and detentions against government critics who took part in opposition rallies abroad earlier this year, officials and rights advocates said Wednesday, the latest move in a sweeping crackdown on dissent and freedom of speech by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The country's Investigative Committee said it identified at least 207 participants in anti-Lukashenko rallies held in Poland, Lithuania, the United States, the U.K. and Canada to mark Belarus’ short-lived independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire.

The raids, detentions and property seizures were carried out in the capital of Minsk and elsewhere across the country, authorities said. They didn't say how many people were targeted.

Mass arrests, trials and convictions of government critics have continued since August 2020 when Lukashenko was handed a sixth term in office in an election that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged. In January, he was given another term in balloting also seen as orchestrated to keep him in office.

Tens of thousands took to the streets in protest, in the biggest demonstrations the country has ever seen. Authorities unleashed a violent crackdown in response, detaining and beating thousands and driving some 500,000 more into exile abroad. The crackdown drew international condemnation, and the U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Belarus.

Belarus' oldest and most prominent rights group, the Viasna center, told The Associated Press that “dozens of activists in Belarus” have been detained in the most recent wave of arrests. Viasna activist Pavel Sapelka called it “the biggest wave of repression” this year.

Viasna has recorded nearly 1,200 people held as political prisoners. The number includes the group’s founder, Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. At least eight political prisoners have died behind bars.

Exiled Belarusian opposition has scheduled a rally in Warsaw for Saturday and Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the mass protests. In response, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned Poland's charge d'affaires and issued a note to denounce what they called “destructive” and “hostile" event that “damages Belarusian-Polish relations.”