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Rival rallies were held in the Belarusian capital of Minsk Sunday, a week after a disputed election that gave longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko another term in office. Tens of thousands of protesters questioning the legitimacy of the recent election gathered for a “March for Freedom”, called for by opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Meanwhile, thousands of supporters gathered in support of Lukashenko, who said Sunday that he would not hold new elections. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gestures as he greets his supporters gathered at Independent Square of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 16, 2020.Addressing the crowd Sunday, Lukashenko denied allegations of election fraud and blamed foreign interference for days of unrest, claiming that NATO was amassing weapons 15 miles from Belarus’ borders. Belarusians have been protesting in the capital, Minsk, and other cities since election officials declared Lukashenko, in power for 26 years, winner of the August 9 election, with over 80% of the votes against the main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, with about 9.9%. Belarusian Ambassador to Slovakia Igor Leshchenya expressed his support for protesters in an undated video published Saturday by Belarusian Nasha Niva media.   “I stand in solidarity with those who came out on the streets of Belarusian cities with peaceful marches so that their voice could be heard,” Leshchenya said in the video. “The Belarusians have achieved this right through suffering.” People hold old Belarusian national flags while gathered at the place where Alexander Taraikovsky died during clashes protesting election results, in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020.Thousands took to the streets of Minsk again Saturday, heeding Tsikhanouskaya’s call  to supporters to rally over the weekend and press on with a movement that presents the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s grip on power in 26 years, since 1994. Protesters also marched to the Belarusian state television center, complaining broadcasts are biased in favor Lukashenko and give a skewed image of the protests. About 100 staff members came out and joined the protest, saying they planned a strike Monday. Facing the biggest challenge to his rule under pressure to resign, Lukashenko called for help from Moscow in a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the situation as “a threat not only to Belarus.” Lukashenko told military chiefs later in the day that Putin had offered “comprehensive help” to “ensure the security of Belarus.” The Kremlin said in a statement that both presidents agreed the “problems” in Belarus would be “resolved soon” and the countries’ ties would strengthen.   
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The U.S. Agency for Global Media is paying tribute to Zofia Korbońska, a member of the anti-Nazi resistance movement who later worked for the VOA Polish service, on the 10th anniversary of her death.  Korbońska, born in Warsaw in 1912, was a member of the Police Underground Army, which fought against the Nazis.   “On a daily basis, she risked her life writing and coding secret shortwave radio transmissions sent from Poland to the Polish government-in-exile in London. A number of her dispatches that reached the free world were broadcast back into occupied Europe by the BBC,” said a statement from USAGM, which oversees VOA and other U.S.-funded broadcast entities. “In addition to her clandestine radio work, Korbońska was also a partner in the work of her husband, Stefan Korboński, the leader of Poland’s anti-Nazi civil resistance and the last head of the Polish Underground State.” After the end of World War Two, both Korbońska and her husband were arrested in Poland by the NKVD Soviet secret police.  They were released after several interrogations.  They escaped to Sweden in 1947 before eventually finding refuge in the United States. In 1980, Korbońska began a more than three-decade career with VOA’s Polish service, using the pen name “Zofia Orlowska” to protect her family and friends back home.  She wrote and recorded occasional programs in the 1980’s after her retirement. She died in Washington on August 16, 2010. Poland slipped to number 62 on Reporters Without Borders annual ranking of countries press freedom in 2020.  The group said Warsaw’s moves to criminalize defamation and other policies are impacting freedom of expression of independent media outlets. It says some courts are using a criminal code article that allows journalists to be sentenced to up to a year in prison for defamation, which is encouraging self-censorship by the media.
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Thousands of demonstrators in Belarus took to the streets again Saturday to demand that the country’s authoritarian leader resign after a presidential vote they called fraudulent. In response, the president declared that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had agreed to provide security assistance to restore order if Belarus requested it.President Alexander Lukashenko spoke Saturday evening several hours after a phone call with Putin as he struggled to counter the biggest challenge yet to his 26 years in power.Saturday was the seventh consecutive day of large protests against the results of the country’s Aug. 9 presidential election in which election officials claimed the 65-year-old Lukashenko won a sixth term in a landslide. Opposition supporters believe the election figures were manipulated and say protesters have been beaten mercilessly by police since the vote.Harsh police crackdowns against the protesters, including the detention of about 7,000 people, have not quashed the most sustained anti-government movement since Lukashenko took power in 1994.  The demonstrators rallied Saturday at the spot in the capital of Minsk where a protester died this week in clashes with police. Some male protesters pulled off their shirts to show bruises they said came from police beatings. Others carried pictures of loved ones beaten so badly they could not attend the rally.People hold old Belarusian national flags while gathered at the place where Alexander Taraikovsky died during clashes protesting election results, in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020.Lukashenko did not specify what sort of assistance Russia would be willing to provide. But he said, “when it comes to the military component, we have an agreement with the Russian Federation,” referring to a mutual support deal the two former Soviet republics signed back in the 1990s.”These are the moments that fit this agreement,” he added.Both the European Union and the U.S. government say the presidential election in Belarus was flawed.  Lukashenko’s main opponent in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania the day after the election, knowing that several previous presidential challengers have been jailed for years on charges that supporters say were trumped up. Other potential challengers, blocked by election officials from running, fled the country before the vote.A funeral was held Saturday for Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester who died Monday in the capital of Minsk under disputed circumstances. Belarusian police said he died when an explosive device he intended to throw at police blew up in his hand.But his partner, Elena German, told The Associated Press that when she saw his body in a morgue Friday, his hands showed no damage and he had a perforation in his chest that she believes is a bullet wound.Hundreds of people came to pay their last respects to Taraikovsky, who lay in an open casket. As the coffin was carried out, many dropped to one knee, weeping and exclaiming “Long live Belarus!”Video shot by an Associated Press journalist on Monday shows Taraikovsky with a bloodied shirt before collapsing on the ground. Several police are seen nearby and some walk over to where Taraikovsky is lying on the street and stand around him.  The video does not show why he fell to the ground or how his shirt became bloodied, but it also does not show that he had an explosive device that blew up in his hand as the government has said.About 5,000 demonstrators gathered Saturday in the area where Taraikovsky died. They laid a mass of flowers in tribute, piling into a mound about 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, as passing cars blared their horns.”It’s awful to live in a country where you can be killed at a peaceful protest. I will leave, if power isn’t changed,” said 30-year-old demonstrator Artem Kushner.Men carry a coffin with the body of Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old demonstrator who died Aug. 10, 2020, amid clashes while protesting election results, during his funeral ceremony in central Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020.Earlier Saturday, Lukashenko rejected suggestions that foreign mediators become involved in trying to resolve the country’s political crisis.  “Listen — we have a normal country, founded on a constitution. We don’t need any foreign government, any sort of mediators, ” Lukashenko said at a meeting with Defense Ministry officials. He appeared to be referring to an offer from the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to help resolve the political crisis in Belarus, a nation of 9.5 million people.But he did discuss the situation in a call Saturday with Putin, the first publicly known direct contact between the two leaders since the election. A Kremlin statement said Putin and Lukashenko both expressed hope for a quick resolution to the tensions.”It is important that these problems are not used by destructive forces aimed at causing injury to the cooperation of the two countries in the framework of the union state,” the Kremlin said.Russia and Belarus reached an agreement in 1997 about closer ties between the neighboring ex-Soviet countries in a union that stopped short of a full merger, although that has collided with recent disputes between the countries and Lukashenko’s suspicions that Putin’s government wants to absorb Belarus.  Protests about the political crisis in Belarus were also held Saturday in the Czech Republic and in front of the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow.The brutal suppression of protests in Belarus has drawn harsh criticism in the West. European Union foreign ministers said Friday that they rejected the election results in Belarus and began drawing up a list of officials in Belarus who could face sanctions over their role in the crackdown on protesters.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that he was glad to see that some protesters in Belarus had been freed but that it was not enough. He also said the presidential election in Belarus fell short of democratic standards.  “We’ve said the elections themselves (in Belarus) weren’t free. I’ve spent the last days consulting with our European partners,” he said Saturday at a news conference in Warsaw with his Polish counterpart.”Our common objective is to support the Belarusian people. These people are demanding the same things that every human being wants,” Pompeo said. “We urged the leadership to broaden the circle to engage with civil society.”
 
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The number of migrants landing on Italy’s shores has more than doubled in the last year as an economic crisis in Tunisia fuels migration in boats across the Mediterranean, Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said on Saturday.More than 21,000 people reached Italy between August 2019 and the end of July, up 148% year-on-year, the minister said, speaking at an annual Aug. 15 press conference.Lamorgese said the majority of the arrivals were “autonomous landings, hard to manage … with small boats and dinghies,” rather than those rescued at sea and brought ashore. Many of them land on Italy’s southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.In the 12-month period, just more than 5,000 people were rescued, mainly by ships operated by NGOs, according to data from the ministry.Over 80% of the migrants reaching Italy left from Tunisia and Libya, the data showed, with Tunisia’s crisis stoking the numbers attempting the treacherous crossing.”The numbers aren’t very high – they are certainly higher than last year’s, but we must put them into context: Tunisia is in a deep economic, social and political crisis,” Lamorgese told reporters.”We have seen entire families leave to reach Italian territory,” she said.For years Italy has been the primary route into Europe for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other migrants and Libya’s west coast a main departure point for African migrants hoping to reach Europe.A peak was reached between August 2016 and July 2017, when almost 183,000 migrants reached Italy.Numbers started falling due to an Italian-led effort to disrupt smuggling networks and support the Libyan coastguard to intercept boats but have picked up in 2020.Lamorgese’s predecessor, head of the anti-immigrant League party Matteo Salvini, took a hardline against charity ships that rescued migrants at sea, closing Italian ports and accusing the rescue groups of de facto collaboration with human traffickers.Lamorgese said that she would meet Tunisian President Kais Saied on Monday to discuss the issue, along with Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio and EU Commissioners Ylva Johansson and Oliver Varhelyi. 
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Huge crowds took to the streets of the Russian city of Khabarovsk Saturday in continued protests following the arrest of former governor Sergey Furgal.Since his arrest on July 9, residents have demonstrated daily in the city, with attendance significantly increasing on weekends.”I do not agree with this government’s course, this is a criminal government, they rob our cities, our regions,” said Elvira, a protester. “I’m against Moscow. All evil comes from the Kremlin.”The governor was arrested by federal law enforcement officers on charges related to murders in 2004 and 2005. He was flown to Moscow, where he was ordered jailed for two months.Furgal, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has denied the charges.The protesters in the Far East city near the border with China, 6,100 kilometers east of Moscow, believe the charges leveled against him are politically motivated.Khabarovsk protesters also expressed support for the opposition in Belarus, where election officials declared longtime authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko the winner of the August 9 election.”We are very worried about them (Belarusian people),” said Oleg, a businessman who wouldn’t give his last name. “The things president Lukashenko gets away with there – well, president for now still – are just totally unacceptable, you can’t do that to your own people. (Reporter: Do you think they will succeed?) I think so. But it will take time, not so fast.”The Belarusian Central Election Commission said on Monday that after all ballots were counted, Lukashenko took 80.23% of the votes and the main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had 9.9% of the vote.”I’ve never actually been to Belarus, it’s just that I understand we have a common historical past, which connects us,” said Yelizaveta Lipatova, an engineer. “Our political systems grew up side by side as well in the 90s and before that. And so I believe we have to follow each other closely, support each other, not lose sight of each other. I think that Belarusians are doing great, and we can learn a lot from them.” Some rally participants did not give their last names for fear of being arrested later.Aleksei Vorsin, Khabarovsk’s regional campaign chief for opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was detained Saturday after calling for a strike.
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The United States and Poland signed a recently negotiated Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) Saturday in Warsaw.Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak inked the agreement after brief remarks by President Andrzej Duda. “The United States values our strong bilateral relationship with Poland. We look forward to Poland’s swift ratification of the EDCA, which will permit us to implement fully the enhanced defense cooperation envisioned by Presidents Trump and Duda,” the State Department said in a statement.The deal supplements an existing NATO Status of Forces Agreement and also allows U.S. forces access to additional military installations in Poland.About 4,500 U.S. troops are currently based in Poland and about 1,000 will be added, as both counties agreed and announced last year. Last July, the Pentagon said that about 12,000 troops would be withdrawn from Germany, from which some 5,600 would be stationed in other countries in Europe, including Poland.The relocation of U.S. troops is in line with President Donald Trump’s demand to reduce American forces in Germany.Also Saturday, Pompeo met with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Poland’s capital, where he is honoring the centennial of the Battle of Warsaw, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said.Pompeo and Morawiecki discussed a new draft bilateral agreement to cooperate in the development of Poland’s civil nuclear power program, which the two countries initialed this week.Besides defense cooperation, Pompeo and Morawiecki discussed the support for the people of Belarus, measures to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, securing 5G networks, and improving regional energy and infrastructure through the Three Seas Initiative, Ortagus said.Poland is the last leg of Pompeo’s four-nation tour of eastern and central Europe, during which he visited the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Austria, and met with the countries’ leaders.
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Huge crowds took to the streets of the Russian city of Khabarovsk Saturday in continued protests following the arrest of former governor Sergey Furgal.Since his arrest on July 9, residents have demonstrated daily in the city, with attendance significantly increasing on weekends.”I do not agree with this government’s course, this is a criminal government, they rob our cities, our regions,” said Elvira, a protester. “I’m against Moscow. All evil comes from the Kremlin.”The governor was arrested by federal law enforcement officers on charges related to murders in 2004 and 2005. He was flown to Moscow, where he was ordered jailed for two months.Furgal, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has denied the charges.The protesters in the Far East city near the border with China, 6,100 kilometers east of Moscow, believe the charges leveled against him are politically motivated.Khabarovsk protesters also expressed support for the opposition in Belarus, where election officials declared longtime authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko the winner of the August 9 election.”We are very worried about them (Belarusian people),” said Oleg, a businessman who wouldn’t give his last name. “The things president Lukashenko gets away with there – well, president for now still – are just totally unacceptable, you can’t do that to your own people. (Reporter: Do you think they will succeed?) I think so. But it will take time, not so fast.”The Belarusian Central Election Commission said on Monday that after all ballots were counted, Lukashenko took 80.23% of the votes and the main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had 9.9% of the vote.”I’ve never actually been to Belarus, it’s just that I understand we have a common historical past, which connects us,” said Yelizaveta Lipatova, an engineer. “Our political systems grew up side by side as well in the 90s and before that. And so I believe we have to follow each other closely, support each other, not lose sight of each other. I think that Belarusians are doing great, and we can learn a lot from them.” Some rally participants did not give their last names for fear of being arrested later.Aleksei Vorsin, Khabarovsk’s regional campaign chief for opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was detained Saturday after calling for a strike.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is warning leaders in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Austria that China’s Communist Party poses an even bigger security threat than the former Soviet Union.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more on Pompeo’s trip to Eastern Europe.
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