You may have heard that recently, thousands of brave people have been on the streets of Minsk, the capital of Belarus (in Eastern Europe, next to Russia), as well as other towns, protesting against the President, Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko has been in office for 26 years, and has won all of the elections that have taken place in that time. However, many people feel that the elections have been rigged and that the candidates running against the President have been treated unfairly – several of them have been put in prison or forced to leave the country. So, for the first time, ordinary people have decided to speak up and show that they have a voice.

One of the candidates originally intending to run against Lukashenko, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arrested in May and has been held ever since, facing up to 12 years in prison. After his arrest, his wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya decided to take his place as ‘a gesture of love’, but she was forced to flee to Lithuania, where she has uploaded YouTube videos showing her support of the protests and condemning the authorities over their handling of them. She says that the ‘authorities have turned peaceful street protests into a bloodbath’, which is unacceptable because ‘human life is the most valuable of all’, and that ‘Belarussians will never again want to live with the old authorities’. Tikhanovskaya adds that ‘the situation is critical’. She makes it very clear that Belarussians are ‘open, honest people who are against violence’, and asks mayors of towns to organise and take part in peaceful mass rallies. She believes that the government should start a dialogue with the people.

In polls before the election, 70-80% of people said that they supported Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and 90% said likewise about another candidate, Novaya Boravaya. However, when the election results were released, Lukashenko claimed to have won by a vast majority for the sixth time since he came into power in 1994. He claimed that only 10% of the votes went to Mrs. Tikhanovskaya.

The protests have included women linking arms and holding flowers, and people chanting slogans and holding banners. The internet has been cut off for the entire country and all entrances to Minsk are being blocked by the army. Soldiers have been sent to peaceful gatherings, where they have fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters and made hundreds of violent arrests. Witnesses have tried to intervene, but were told to ‘go back to their homes’. Some people said they heard sounds of beatings and cries for help inside police vans. Lukashenko has said that the women high up in politics, like Mrs. Tikhanovskaya, have no place in the government and that, ‘they will not have this country’. But it looks like that, for the first time in 26 years, change may be coming to Belarus.