2020–2021 Belarusian protests
2020–2021 protests against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass political demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko.[67][68] The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonstrations began in the lead-up to and during the 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought his sixth term in office.[69][68] In response to the demonstrations, a number of relatively small pro-government rallies were held.[47]
The protests intensified nationwide after the official election results were announced on the night of 9 August, in which Lukashenko was declared the winner. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opponent of Lukashenko, rejected the results as falsified and claimed instead to have received 60–70% of the votes. On 14 August, she announced the creation of the Coordination Council, with membership applications open to all Belarusians who agreed that the official election had been falsified.[6][70]
On 23 September, Belarusian state media announced that Lukashenko had been inaugurated for another five-year term in a brief ceremony which was held privately.[71] The following day, the EU published a statement that rejected the legitimacy of the election, called for new elections, and condemned the repression and violence against the protesters.[72]
The protesters faced violent persecution by the authorities. A statement by the United Nations Human Rights Office on 1 September cited more than 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, as well as reports of sexual abuse and rape.[73] At the end of 2020, the Viasna Human Rights Centre documented 1,000 testimonies of torture victims.[74]