MINSK, Belarus: Around 140 people have been detained during opposition protests in Belarus, the Vyasna rights group said Saturday, as President Alexander Lukashenko ramps up a crackdown on critics ahead of polls.
In power since 1994, Lukashenko, 65, is seeking a sixth term in the August presidential election.
Opposition figures have fought hard to get on the ballot, and a number of opponents — including Lukashenko’s strongest election rival Viktor Babaryko — have been jailed in the runup to the August 9 vote.
Friday was the last day for candidates seeking to challenge the incumbent to gather ballot-access signatures from supporters.
On Friday evening their supporters lined the streets in the capital Minsk and other cities to support Lukashenko’s critics but police moved in to break those gatherings.
As a result, around 140 people — including 80 in Minsk — were detained, the Vyasna rights group said.
Detentions also took place in Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Brest, Mogilev and other cities.
Five people including a minor have been beaten, the rights group said.
A number of journalists with foreign media outlets were detained, including a correspondent for Radio Free Europe’s Belarusian service who was led away by plain-clothed officers while filming a live video.
Some people were released late Friday, while others were waiting for a court hearing.
A freelance video journalist on assignment for Reuters new agency was among those detained in Minsk, said an agency spokesperson, before being released.
On Thursday, Lukashenko’s main rival Babaryko, a 56-year-old former banker, was arrested on suspicion of financial crimes.
He formerly headed Belgazprombank, a Belarus subsidiary of Russian energy giant Gazprom. A total of around 20 people have been detained in connection with investigations linked to Belgazprombank.
Lukashenko announced that authorities had foiled a foreign plot to stage a popular uprising in Belarus.
The detention of Babaryko came after authorities jailed other critics including prominent opposition politician Mikola Statkevich and popular vlogger Sergei Tikhanovsky.
The run-up to the presidential vote has seen a flurry of opposition activity, in stark contrast to the incumbent’s traditional Soviet approach to campaigning.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international election and war monitor, has not recognized any polls in Belarus as free and fair since 1995.
Belarus detains dozens at opposition protests
https://arab.news/bacxm
Belarus detains dozens at opposition protests
- In power since 1994, Lukashenko, 65, is seeking a sixth term in the August presidential election
- A number of journalists with foreign media outlets were detained
Trump urges Iranian Kurds to attack Iran as war widens
- Azerbaijan preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday
- The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka
DUBAI/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka where a US submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.”
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether, and how, to attack Iran’s security forces in the western part of the country, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
The Iranian Kurdish coalition of groups based on the Iran-Iraq border in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan has been training to mount such an attack in hopes of weakening the country’s military, as the United States and Israel pound Iranian targets with bombs and missiles. Trump, speaking with Reuters in a telephone interview, also said the United States must have a role in deciding who will be the next leader of Iran after airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
“We’re going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We’re going to have to choose that person,” he said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the US was not expanding its military objectives in Iran, despite what Trump said about choosing the country’s next leader.
“There’s no expansion in our objectives. We know exactly what we’re trying to achieve,” he said. The attack on Iran is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern. Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
Azerbaijan prepares to retaliate
Azerbaijan was preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday after it said four Iranian drones crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.
“We will not tolerate this unprovoked act of terror and aggression against Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev told a meeting of his Security Council.
Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it targeted its neighbor.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5 km (3 miles) of the border between the countries in a message posted on its Telegram channel in Hebrew early on Friday.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.
Us munitions full
Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said during a briefing about operations that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
The Pentagon earlier this week said the military campaign, known as Operation Epic Fury, is focused on destroying Iran’s offensive missiles, missile production and navy, while not allowing Tehran to have a nuclear weapon.
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier.
He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran’s missile production facilities.
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90 percent since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83 percent in that time frame, he said. In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
