Belarus protest dispersed by police, some detained

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Belarus protest dispersed by police, some detained

Andrei Makhovsky

Reuters North American News Service

Jan 21, 2008 11:20 EST

MINSK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Police in ex-Soviet Belarus dispersed a protest on Monday by about 2,000 entrepreneurs denouncing President Alexander Lukashenko's decree that places restrictions on hiring staff.

The rally, the second such protest this month, went ahead in central October Square without official permission and organisers said about 15 activists were detained.

Clearly wanting to avoid confrontation after Interior Minister Viktor Naumov threatened to remove them by force, they were pushed to nearby pavements by riot police beating their shields.

"We now see a general practice in Belarus of state pressure on business," Viktor Krival, one of the leaders of the small business protest, told protesters in the square, scene of big demonstrations against Lukashenko's re-election two years ago.

"The decree aims to destroy the individual entrepreneur."

Businessmen say the new regulations deny them the right to hire workers outside their immediate families or obliges them to re-register and be subject to higher taxes.

Leaders of the 200,000-strong movement of small entrepreneurs have threatened to go on strike from next month and to withhold tax payments. Protests three years ago prompted authorities to roll back on changes in regulations.

Lukashenko is accused by Western countries of running roughshod over basic rights by jailing opponents, crushing independent media and rigging elections, including his re-election to a third term in 2006.

Dozens of activists were detained at a similar protest two weeks ago and handed short jail terms for public order offences.

Belarus's most prominent opposition leader, interviewed by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said authorities were reacting "very nervously" by arresting protesters.

Entrepreneurs, once apolitical, had been galvanised by the threat to their livelihood, Alexander Milinkevich said, and the liberal and nationalist opposition was helping them.

"While Lukashenko is putting the thumbscrews on the domestic private sector, he is handing out licences everywhere in the cities to foreign supermarket chains which small businesses can no longer compete with," Milinkevich told the daily.

"In this situation, the merchants recognise that their only chance for survival is to take their protest on to the streets."

(Additional reporting by Ian Rogers in Berlin, Writing by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Jon Boyle)

[source]

[Whiteruthenian]

It’s difficult to say what Łukašenka does it all for. Theoretically (from what I have read) after the rises in prices on oil and gas, to sustain the Belarusian model of economy (with all its elements – low level of unemployment etc.) our leaders should not “put the thumbscrews on the domestic private sector” but “undo the nuts” instead. So why is being done what is being done it is unclear yet (at least to me).