Belarus raids rights group’s office, arrests dozens ahead of rally

MINSK: Belarus authorities raided the office of a prominent rights group, detaining dozens of people ahead of a planned protest, including foreign rights workers, the group said.

Police also detained opposition leader Vladimir Nekliayev as he was returning from Poland, taking him off the train at the border and placing him in a detention facility.

Viasna, an NGO that had been tracking arrests and protest rallies in Belarus in recent weeks, said riot police blocked their office in Minsk and was conducting a search.

The police broke down the door, “put people face down on the floor and told them to stay there,” the NGO said on its website.

A protest had been scheduled by the opposition for 2pm in Minsk and several other cities, the latest in a series of events against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Thousands have attended rallies in recent weeks to oppose a controversial new tax on “spongers” – those who work less than six months a year – as the country suffers an economic slump, with the swell in protests alarming the government.

Authorities late Friday told organisers that the event would be illegal.

Yesterday, scores of armoured police trucks and water cannons, as well as officers armed with automatic rifles, could be seen in the city.

The square where the protest had been set to start was blocked by heavy police presence, with the metro exits sealed.

About a hundred people at the scene were being detained en masse shortly after 2pm, according to a journalist.