MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st February, 2021) More than 160 people were detained during the Sunday unauthorized anti-government protests held across Belarus, mainly in the capital Minsk, the unregistered Viasna human rights center said.
According to the latest data on the Viasna website, 166 people were detained on Sunday, three of them in Grodno and Navahrudak, the rest in Minsk. The circumstances of the detentions were not specified.
Minsk police have not commented on the detentions.
Earlier, Viasna estimated that 23 people had been held by police in Minsk throughout Sunday. Among those detained was Luzia Tschirky, a reporter with Swiss public broadcaster SRF. She tweeted she had been stopped at traffic lights and put into a police van together with two friends. She was freed hours later, while the couple remained in custody.
Sputnik has been unable to confirm the reported arrests independently or obtain a comment from local police.
Belarus has seen regular mass opposition protests following the presidential election on August 9, 2020, that saw President Alexander Lukashenko reelected for a sixth term. While electoral authorities maintain that Lukashenko collected over 80 percent of the vote, the opposition insists that his key contender, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, won the election.
In January, Tikhanovskaya said that the opposition movement had become less active in Belarus but the protests were expected to regain their momentum this spring.
