{"id":17858,"date":"2020-07-16T14:26:34","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T11:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/?p=17858"},"modified":"2020-07-16T14:26:34","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T11:26:34","slug":"hundreds-of-protesters-face-criminal-charges-in-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/weben\/hundreds-of-protesters-face-criminal-charges-in-belarus\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of protesters face criminal charges in Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\"><p>Authorities in Belarus have arrested at least 250 people at protests in major cities, rights groups said Wednesday, a day after the main challengers to long-time President Alexander Lukashenko was barred from standing in next month\u2019s election.<\/p>\n<p>Police threatened many of the protesters with serious criminal charges and said the demonstrations were sparked by &#8221;internet provocateurs.&#8221; Many protesters have already been charged with administrative violations and face fines or short jail times.<\/p>\n<p>Rights group Amnesty International condemned &#8221;excessive and unnecessary use of force by police.&#8221; Arrested protesters were forced to kneel and were hit in the face by police, Belarusian rights group Viasna said.<\/p>\n<p>Residents were venting their anger over the decision to bar two main rivals from running against authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in August&#8217;s presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>People voiced their frustration at the exclusion of Valery Tsepkalo and Viktor Babariko from the ballot paper, and removing any serious threat to Lukashenko&#8217;s quest for a sixth term after a quarter-century in power.<\/p>\n<p>The Belarusian electoral commission on Monday ruled unanimously that Babariko should not be on the ballot paper as a result of the charges.<\/p>\n<p>Viasna said more than 35 people had been arrested in Tuesday&#8217;s unrest, including several journalists.<\/p>\n<p>Rallies also occurred in a number of provincial cities, including Brest and Gomel.<\/p>\n<p>Lukashenko, a former collective farm chief, has been president for 26 years. He will now face four opposition candidates in the August vote<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/belarus-protests-lukashenko\/a-54178490\">Deutsche Welle<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities in Belarus have arrested at least 250 people at protests in major cities, rights groups said Wednesday, a day after the main challengers to&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[5255,4534,5254,2269],"class_list":["post-17858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weben","tag-alexander-lukashenko","tag-belarus","tag-elections","tag-protests","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/rsz_vaulogo.jpg?fit=100%2C58&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17860,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17858\/revisions\/17860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}