Police detain a protester at a rally in Minsk on June 19
CNN: Belarus strongman faces mass protests after jailing of his main rivals
Mass protests are spreading across Belarus as opposition to the reelection campaign of President Alexander Lukashenko grows, local media and human-rights organizations have reported.
Lukashenko has ruled the former Soviet republic of more than 9 million people since 1994 and is running for the sixth time in an election scheduled for August 9. He has long drawn international criticism for suppressing dissent, and the country's secret police -- still known as the KGB -- often detain and harass opposition activists and independent journalists.
Demonstrations on Friday, in which thousands marched on the streets of 10 cities, were prompted by a series of arrests, in what the opposition activists called an attempt to take popular candidates out of the presidential race. Two of Lukashenko's main opponents are currently in KGB and police detention: popular YouTube blogger Sergei Tikhanovskiy, who was detained in late May, and former Belgazprombank chairman Viktor Babaryko, who was arrested on June 18 along with his son and campaign manager, Eduard Babaryko, according to their campaigns.
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WNU Editor: It is hard to get any information or independent news out of Belarus even at the best of times. But from what I am hearing from my family and friends in Russia who know people in Minsk, it appears that the unrest is growing nationwide.
