The ex-Soviet nation has been gripped by historic protests after Lukashenko claimed victory in August 9 elections over Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a popular opposition candidate.
In a message ahead of Sunday’s protest, Tikhanovskaya urged Belarusians to press ahead with their demands “peacefully but persistently”.
“We will stop only when every political prisoner walks free, when members of law enforcement begin to defend the people, and rule of law and honest elections return to Belarus,” she said.
Tikhanovskaya, who was granted shelter in EU member Lithuania after the vote, has called on Lukashenko to quit power before October 25, warning he would otherwise face a crippling general strike.
Earlier this week police claimed that protests were becoming more radicalised and warned that law enforcement would use lethal force “if necessary”. Belarusian authorities deployed military trucks on Sunday and phone networks were heavily disrupted.
Local operator MTS Belarus said it had been ordered to limit access to “ensure national security”. Rights group Viasna said police had begun detaining demonstrators in Minsk and elsewhere.
In a break from previous protests when demonstrators gathered in the city centre, protesters on Sunday marched along Partisan Prospect, the main transport artery in southeast Minsk and home to a number of factories.
‘Descendants of glorious warriors’
The Nexta Live channel on social-media platform Telegram, which has coordinated protesters, urged Belarusians to express solidarity with workers during the protest, dubbed the “March of Partisans”. “We, descendants of glorious warriors and partisans, are worthy of our forefathers who already defeated fascism once,” the channel said in a message to its more than two million subscribers.
During World War II, Nazi-occupied Belarus had Europe’s largest partisan movement.
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